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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PRIMROSE 
DIPLOMACY 



\^ 



DISCORDS 

IN 

THE JINGO SYMPHONY 

BY 

AN UNTUNED LYRE 
THE 

Hbbey press 

PUBLISHERS 
114 
FIFTH AVENUE 

XonSon NEW YORK /Bbontveal 

I 






.1^ 



k(p'^( 



THE L!8HARY AF 

e©NGRi-.SS, 
Two Copise RecE'vES 

MAY. 2 1902 

-COPVRI«HT FNTBV 

CUASS^XXc No. 
OOPY B. 



Copyright, 

1902, 

By JOSEPH HUTCHINSON. 



■V 



^ DEDICATED TO THE 

AND TO 



" Croak — croak — croak ? 

You're a d— d little bloke ! " 
*' Always was, ' ' says the little Jackdaw. 

T. U. Brown. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Croaker g 

The Stirrup-Cup 1 1 

Warning 1 1 

Weaponless 1 1 

Which ? , 12 

King Kipling j-. 

Primrose Diplomacy i t 

The Boer , 14 



Mine. 



17 



God Save the Queen 17 

Tact 20 

October the Ninth, Ninety-Nine 20 

Glencoe 21 

Ave Maria 22 

The Golden Lyre 22 

Turn About ~. 

• 24 

The British Muse 24 

The Mask 26 

Elands I.aagte 27 

The Hammer ^.o 

Take Down Our Flag 30 

Latitudes , ->2 

The Jingo Statesman 34 

Nail-Driving 3 c 

7 



8 Contents. 

PAGB 

Who Began the War ? 36 

Chained 38 

To Mother England 38 

Mutes 39 

The Soul Combine , 40 

The Cabbage Rose 43 

Peace and Prosperity 43 

Bubbles 47 

Sample 48 

Children 48 

The Camel's Back . 50 

Sine Qua Non 50 

The False Witness 50 

The Best Evidence. 52 

Per Alium 53 

Freedom 54 

Join the Cry 55 

The Touchstone 56 

Strabismus 57 

Clairvoyance 57 

Save My Cecil 57 

Fits 59 

Colenso 59 

Myopia 60 

Spion Kop , 60 

The Higher Civilization 61 

Flames 62 

Mates 64 

Bonnie Brown Bird ; 66 

The Sun, The Moon and the Dogs , 66 

Simony 67 

The Presence 67 

Cum Grano 69 

Truth, Justice, Liberty..... 69 



Contents. 9 



PAGE 



The Queen's Feast . . 71 



The Dream of Empire. 



73 



The ruRPLE Robe 74 

Bury them Deep 78 

The World's Master 78 

Sesame 84 

Saint Francis 84 

Heresy 88 

Victory 89 

Universalism 89 

Ten Thousand Gone 90 

Aspiration 91 

To THE War Editor 91 

The Independent Press 92 

Expansion 93 

Reversion 94 

The Mortar-Box 94 

The Literary Outlook on January 6, 1900 96 

The Southern Cross 97 

To-Wit 98 

Phcebe 98 

Cronje 99 

The Greatest Commercial Asset 101 

The Poet Visits the Cape loi 

The Sign of the Elephant 103 

The 'Andkerchief ■ 104 

The Gong 105 

The Weaver 106 

The Butcher-Bird 107 

Bloemfontein 108 

Dissolution 109 

Joubert no 

Orange River Colony no 

Free England , HI 



10 Contents. 

PAGE 

The British Slave 1x2 

A Purple Tail Patch 115 

Undertones 161 

It is Well 119 

Overtones 1 20 

The Pity of the Pushiful 122 

The Mortar-Board 123 

To Tommy and Budge 123 

Saint George 124 

Saint Matthew 125 

Not a Colley 1 28 

The Isle of Man 128 

Cecilian Whispers 1 29 

The Kynockoskiinator '. 133 

Compensation 137 

Symptoms 139 

Who Should Pay ? 142 

The Golden Fleece 14^ 

Made in America 146 

Tacked 147 

Saint Stephen .... 148 

Herod 151 

The Hot House 1 52 

And Now the Greatest One 153 

The Queen is Dead 154 

Cabled from Cowes 155 

Retouching 157 

Howells on Stedman 1 58 

Guides 1 58 

Tricolors x6o 

Saint Mark 160 

Khaki 161 

Howells , 161 

The Nation 162 



Contents. 1 1 

PAGB 

Go With Him Twain 163 

The Outlook 163 

Estimation 1 64 

HouNSLOW Heath 165 

Nemesis 165 

The Bellows 1 56 

The Extinct Liberal 167 

MiLNER 167 

Mesmer •• 168 

Protection 1 68 

Liberty » 169 

The Dinner Pail 170 

Ballast 170 

Federal Bankruptcy 170 

The Fading Flag 170 

The Constitution 172 

Saint Helena 172 

Salisbury i73 

A Prime Minister i73 

The Iron-Brown'd Lath 176 

The Rotten Borough 176 

The Critic 178 

The Stopper I79 

The Cork 180 



PRIMROSE DIPLOMACY. 



THE CROAKER. 

There's no " true metal " here, I know — 

To quote from Matthew A. — 
But then 'tis I confess it s:o, 

And so 'tis I can say 

To any charitable hearts 

To whom my croaker sings : 
A frog, despite inspiring parts, 

Can never capture wings. 

Remember, when near Winter's flight • ''.i^^^ 

You hear his croaking strong. 
Not he who sets a wrong aright 

Is set to write a song. 



And still the Winter's at the root — 
Remember that again — 

Be patient till the Spring's afoot — 
He may do better then. 



10 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Or when the Spring her course has run — 

More fitted to him yet — 
He might be then prevailed upon 

To do a Summer set. 

And Summer over, Autumn, all 

Her grinding axles hot. 
Puts on the road, whate'er be Fall, 

An automobile lot. 

To last until t)he runners come. 

No more a wheel or wing 
Awakes the bull-frog sleeping some 

Three mouths again till Spring. 

The bull-frog sleeping? Never! No! — 

No sleeper that sly elf, — 
And tho' he seem however so. 

He's croaking to himself. 

And when the strong Spring croaks you hear 

The sylvan echoes waking, 
There's not a croak however clear 

But what's of Winter's making. 



Weaponless. n 



THE STIRRUP-CUP. 

Quick to the saddle! See how sad Fll be! 
Stir up the lees and lift the stirrup-cup ! 
Quaff to the dregs and drag along with me 
To pick an epic or a hiccup up. 

WARNING. 

If in ensuing lines should seem combined 

Both Stephens Phillips' grace and ornament 

With Matthew Arnold's classic cast of mind. 

Be sure it could be but by accident. 

The humble authors had in contemplation 

To reproduce exactly, more or less, 

The gentle spirit of the New York Nation 

Informed by the Associated Press. 

WEAPONLESS. 

Shamefaced I'd stand before the real King's 

son, 
And own no magic purple in the veins 
Of any line that leads to me. Who held the 

reins 
Drove often without help of mine, and won 
Often, and often lost. Trembles the shock 
Along the plain. The final battle-cry 



12 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Summons. Not even broken sword have I, 
Nor string, nor pebble, nor an alpen-stock. 
Thus poorly ready, must I therefore yield 
To the invader's armored host this day 
So pregnant with the future — turn away 
And with the craven hurry from the field ? 
Never! Tho' empty-handed, speed me in: 
'Tis not the weapon, but the cause, will win. 



WHICH? 

What shall the music of the future be? 
The organ and the voices are the same 
As when the great Homeric message came. 
Who shall the master of the music be? 
If some foul fiend from out the underworld 
Gains the possession of the keys and choir — 
Back to the caverns of eternal fire 
Bid the drown'd echoes of despair be hurl'd.- 
But seat instead the Spirit of the Air — 
Love, Light and Tolerance and Beauty there — 
Homer and Dante. Shakespeare and the great 
Singer of Paradise — Browning and his mate. 
Then shall the music of the future be 
Thunder-crown'd heights in Freedom's sym- 
phony. 



Primrose Diplomacy. 13 

KING KIPLING. 

What care I how critics complain ? 

By the right of my genius I reign. 

At my post in the van of the mind, 

Must I wait for advice from behind ? 

In my choice of each weapon and tool 

Can I stop to consult every fool? 

I know not your phrases and fetters, 

I boost what I please into Letters ; 

Do I like it ? In it goes — jamb ! 

You condemn it? I don't care a " Damn." 

PRIMROSE DIPLOMACY. 

The representatives upon their bellies lie; 

Now crawl from rock to rock, sneak a pot-shot. 

Bang ! — then the whiffle of a screeching shell — 

The Secretary is preparing things — 

Crash! — Bang! the air is full of blood and 
bones. 

The whole ambassadorial host now rise, 

And rush and dodge and stab and cut and 
shoot — 

Crack-err! ca-pow! zip-zip! pifif-paff! thud- 
thud! 

Accredited to pacify and soothe. 

This diplomatic parliamentaJ corps 



14 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Now wildly wave their hands and add their 

yells 
To the already weighted atmosphere. 
Then rotting corpses stick from ill-made 

graves. 
The general cocks his cup upon his front, — 
North-east by north, — no ! — north — there ! 

north-north-west, — 
Pins up his metals on his sample case, 
And with complacence views the perfect scene. 
And then the author of the enterprise, 
The pushful genius who promotes it all, 
Takes final courage to poke out his nose. 

THE BOER. 

Exiled froin home, driv'n on a frowning coast, 
Freedom ihis cry. 
No freedom found he there, 
But onward he must fare; 
Onward and further onward 
His patient quest pursued ; 
No home or resting-place for him; 
His camp no sooner set 
Than his malignant fate. 
Insatiable greed, 

Came down to drive him further on. 
Before him, danger and death from flood and 
desert, beast and savage men ; 



The Boer. 15 

Behind him, organized rapacity. 

Counting naught dear but liberty, 

His forward track is marked with battlefields 

and graves, 
Till now, push'd to the utmost verge of barren 

earth. 
Beyond him a trackless wilderness to which he 

cannot flee, 
He stands at last at bay. 
Facing the same inveterate enemy. 
He gathers the wife and children close about 

him. 
And lifting his heart to heaven, 
Waits the mortal blow. 

Dear shall it cost the rufhans who bestow it, 
But, sooin or late, their dastard work is done, 
And he and his lie dead. 
And liberty lies dead. 

Shame, England, Shame! 

Tool of dishonest men; 

Her conscience barter'd to the stock exchange; 

Her armies hired to the hosts of greed ; 

Her flimsy, lying pretexts of excuse 

But deepen still the blackness of her crime; 

Her name thrice-sullied now, her noble name. 

Shame, England, Shame! 



i6 Primrose Diplomacy. 

America, Friend of Freedom, 
Where standest thou ? 
Canst thou be silent now ? 
Canst thou stand meekly by and see this out- 
rage done as if with thy consent? 
Alas! Guilty herself, 

Her hands red and her tents bulging with loot. 
She dare but silent be, 
Ashamed. 

Wake! Wake! Awake! Spirit of Freedom, 

Wake! 
Rouse up the sleeping conscience ere it die. 
False to their trust the so-called governments, 
Chains but to leagne the masses, ill or well. 
And sell their power to the work of hell. 

Awake, mankind, they cannot chain your souls, 
Arouse, whate'er your color, name or state. 
Cry out, cry out, your protest, and again cry 

out. 
Till on and on- in rising mighty storm, 
Roars out the alarm to all the universe, 
That liberty is dead. 
Justice is dead. 

And Heaven, sullen, echoes back with deep- 
ton' d kneel of foredoom'd empire. 



God Save the Queen. 17 



MINE. 

Rhymeless and metreless — a ragged thing — 
Breaks over every canon of the trade — 
And yet I'd rather own that ragged thing 
Than be the greatest critic ever made, 

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! 

Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Hurrah ! 
Throw high the hats and sticks into the air. 

Hurrah ! H^urrah ! Hurrah ! Hurrah ! 
Bellow the business men and brokers. 

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! 
Hurrah ! 

God Save the Queen! 

See the splendid fleet of transports, 
The Marathon, the Monarch and the Monster, 
Each with a thousand British soldiers, 
Each with the Union Jack a-flying, 
Each with its royal band a-playing, 
God Save the Queen ! 

Here the general, Sir Redvers Buller, sir. 
With all his honorable decorations, sir ; 
They've given him the absolute control, sir; 
He wouldn't stir a step unless they did, sir ; 



i8 Primrose Diplomacy. 

They've voted him a hundred thousand men, 

sir; 
He said he wouldn't be a second Colley, sir; 
And with him such a lot of noble sirs, sir — 

The finest staff that ever left the shore. 

Hail ! Noble England ! Hail ! 
Mother of admirals, generals, statesmen ! 
At last the doom of tyranny is sounding. 
Poor Armenia ! Saddest of all the earth ; 
She dare not even weep her thousands slain ; 
Blood, blood and blood again, for weary ages; 
Unheard the cries of her despairing women ; 
Unheard the cries of all her murdered chil- 
dren — 
Seeming unheard — but England heard and an- 
swers. 
Slow is the Anglo-Saxon heart to kindle, 
Nice is the Anglo-Saxon sense of justice, 
War is an awful thing and must be dreaded, 
Must be postponed till other means exhausted. 
Patient and slow was England with the Sultan, 
Till now the outrage is too great to suffer; 
At last the doom of tyranny is sounding, 
For England shakes herself, magnificent. 
And all this splendid fleet and mighty army 
Sails straightway through the Gates of Her- 
cules, 
Ploug'hs up the waters of the Middle Ocean, 



God Save the Queen. 19 

Lays low in ashes all the Sultan's cities, 
Sweeps with avenging flames through all the 

country, 
Wipes out that awful stain from of¥ the earth, 

Restores Armenia to her own ! 
Brings in the century with peace and joy! 

Hail! Noble England! Hail, and all 
Hail! 

They're sailing to do up a dozen Dutchmen! 
To quiet title to the good mines, 

And incidentally a lot of poor ones ; 
And to sustain the dignity of England ; 
And boom the shares of all the railroads ; 
And to establish equal rights ! 

America, home oi pilgrims, what say you ? 
Hush! Hush! Be still! You, traitor! Hush! 
American canned goods are booming. 
Demand for horses is unprecedented, 
Breadstuffs and ammunition. 

Husih ! Hush ! Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Hur- 
rah ! 

God Save the Queen! 

God speed the Dutchmen's bullets! 
God spare the Dutchmen's homes ! 
Catch Cecil Rhodes and skin him ! 
Blow up the Marquis and Joe Chamberlain! 
God Save the Oueen! 



20 Primrose Diplomacy. 



TACT. 

I KNOW some Irishmen who think that's beau- 
tiful, 
Some' Germans and some Frenchmen say the 

same; 
Based on their estimates I could compute a full, 
And firmly file, a literary claim. 
But best of all. I know some Englishmen, 
Whose every drop denies that they be Dutch, 
Declare, these diplomatic Englishmen, 
They like my verses better than they like me, 
much ! 

" OCTOBER THE NINTH, NINETY- 
NINE." 

No rig'ht but might; no end but gain; no 

wrong 
So deep and vile but she has let it be 
If undisturbed in acquisition she, 
Her title-hungry, wealth-adoring throng. 
Great prizes still unseized, but far too strong. 
The foes that guard. Too long now idle we, 
Have Emperor, Czar and Sultan " bidden us 

be"— 
" Patience, long sick to death, is dead — too 

long!" 



Glencoe. 21 

Hark! Hark! What sound from Africa we 

ihear ! 
Goaded to madness, in fair Freedom's name 
A band of farmers dare denounce her shame! 
The long-sought opportunity is near : 
Rich prize, weak foe — we scarce had hoped the 

Hke! 
Strike quick ! Strike home ! Strike, noble Eng- 
land, strike! 

GLENCOE 

Weep not for those who fell at Glencoe's hill; 
It is a soldier's privilege to die 
Facing the foe, and falling, silent lie. 
Obedient to the mother country's will. 
Weep not for faithful hearts at home who still 
Stand waiting, trembling, till their anxious 

sigh 
The fatal message turns to stifled cry. 
The last full measures of their sorrow fill. 
Weep, weep I that in such needless, wicked 

strife — 
Mere puppets in a politician's plot, 
Unholy war of gambler's greed begot — 
True hearts are torn, brave spirits yield their 

life. 
Tears, love and shame, with rising wrath must 

blend ; 
Worthy, such soldiers, of a worthier end. 



22 Primrose Diplomacy. 



AVE MARIA. 

Put not the sonnet to such evil use ; 
Spare her soft tissues so unkind abuse, 
Tithe mint and cummin, frankincense and rue; 
Banish your Swinburnes and your Austins too ; 
Kick out your cobblers, lend your Taylors 

sway, — 
The' takes ten Taylors to make one Jose. 

THE GOLDEN LYRE. 

The poet reaches for his golden lyre; 
He hastens with it to the window pane' — 
(Vibrant the wire with prophetic hire — 

He screws it tight 

With a copyright : 
Then see him smite with a mighty smite — 
The while he gazes at the weather-vane: 

I sing the right of the man that's white 

To rule black, red and yellow ; 
It is not wrong for the man that's strong 
To rob his weaker fellow. 
By bloody fight 
I spread the light 
Of truth majestic, queenly; 

I'll never cease till a graveyard peace 
Surrounds the earth serenely. 



The Golden Lyre. 23 

I sing the shriek of the screeching shell 

And the zip-zip dum-dum hall, 
The crunching bone and the smothered groan, 

The blood of the men who fall. 
I build the State 
On racial hate 
'And Christianity up to date. 
The way of teaching line by line 
Is a fine old way, but it is not mine 
No patient precepts, one by one; 
But Gospel maxims by the ton 
I pump into them with a Maxim gun. 

There is no use to attack abuse, 
Except with ready triggers; 
And if they fight, tho' they think they're right, 
I blow them up — the niggers! 

A sunburn'd Boer 

Is little more 
Than a nigger, too ; I sing, 

Lest we forget, 

A republic set 

On gold 
Is a Tyrant King! I 

Now, there is the song that he sings to-day; 

'Tis not the song he sang yesterday; 

Nor the song he will sing on his next lay day. 



24 Primrose Diplomacy. 

He's shifting sand; 
With a master's hand 
shovels his repertory; 
They say his lay is the lay of the land ; 
Some godless call the recessional 
A personal offertory. 

O, long he'll fire 

His Golden Lyre — 
His great Eolian Golden Lyre — 

Which way the wind is blowing; 
He'll train his strain to the weather-vane. 

And his lays of light 

Will be gathered tight 

In a universal copyright; 
While his bank account keeps growing. 

TURN ABOUT. 

Tho' I sat at his feet, tho' I stood in his awe, 
He would kick me as quick as his brother-in- 
law. 

THE BRITISH MUSE. 

Bowing to your kinsmen 

With your sweetest smile, 

Yearning to attach them 
To your project vile. 



The British Muse. 25 

Labored list of reasons, 

Scheduled for defense; 
Straightway swift the flash of truth 

Pierces your pretense. 
Decorate your robber 

With your painted lies; 
Still the same old robber 

Penetrates disguise. 
Tell us now your dower. 

Nicely graded pelf; 
Call it gold or power, 

It is for yourself. 
Panting with your protests, 

Honesty aloof; 
Ever guilty conscience 

Needeth no reproof. 

We do not want your diamonds, your gold 

mines or your State — 
Our purposes the purest, don't mistake them — 
But our liberty to take them we are bound to 

demonstrate, 
And the only way to do it is to take them. 

You need not tell your virtue^ 

We have heard of it ; 
You need not tell your record — 

We believe it; 



26 Primrose Diplomacy. 

You need not tell your motive — 
We have word of it ; 

You need not tell your purpose- 
We perceive it. 



Keen and vulg^ar gatherer of shekels — 
Ail the strength and all the beauty gone — 
Whence your right to prostitute the language 
To the basest uses it has known ? 
Tongue of freedom is the Anglo-Saxon, 
111 it fits the songs of tyranny; 
Tongue of truth the language of our fathers, 
You have wed it to chicanery. 
Self-appointed steward of the judgment, 
Prophet of the purse, your waning day 
Echoes and re-echoes with your clamor. 
With your locust ditty, " Pay, pay, pay " — 
Fawn upon your masters with your iterated 

plea — 
" Pence for Tommy Atkins ; pounds for me ! '*' 

THE MASK. 

No music can veil 
The form of his tail, 
Nor skill keep aloof 
The shape of his hoof; 
Tho' he tincture his blood with a prayer. 



Elands Laagte. 27 

'Tis the voice of a brute, 
V Tho' he play on a lute; 
See the size of his jaws 
Grins a rent in the gauze — 
As you 'ear 'is Goddam in 'is air. 



ELANDS LAAGTE. 

Born on the veldt, a little fair-hair'd child 
Gazed on the world thro' tranquil azure eyes, 
Drank, in the depths of many a midnig-ht mild, 
The impassioued Freedom of those Southern 
skies. 

The fireside gleams shot on the cottage wall 
Touch with deep cardinal the suppliant forms, 
While the low steadfast sombre voices call 
In solemn cadences the God of Storms. 

Saz'e 11s our Motherland, O God of Hosts! 
Save us our Freedom, Father of the Free! 
Drive thou the Arch-Deceiver from our coasts! 
Bid the Great Promise-Breaker broken be! 

The fair-hair'd farm-lad echoes the appeal. 
The firm " Amen " still vibrates on his lips, 
His eyes flash lightning and his teeth set steel, 
As if upon his rifle-stock he grips. 



28 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Beetling ambition met unbridled greed, 
Hasted unlovely nuptials to proclaim; 
Indecent vows gave pregnant evil speed : 
Abortive war, black, base, dishonored came. 

Quick sped the summons, quicker the reply, 
Thrilling the veldt as sunrise thrills the sea; 
Flashing from hearth to hearth the call to die 
In last devoted pledge to liberty. 

Never a tear the grim-faced mother shed, 
Kissing her fair-hair'd lad she bade him go. 
Quick to the saddle ; soon the day is sped — 
Not sooner than the rising torrents flow, 

Flow to the bounds, flow till they overflow, 
Down the aggressor's valleys through the 

night ; 
Pour and outspread, until the morning glow 
Beholds the foe's vain-glory fade in flight. 

Back on the veldt, firm-visaged women toil, 
Fed by the farther vision Duty sees, 
Bending their furrowed faces to the soil. 
The great invincible reserves are these! 

At Elands Laagte, on the verge of hell, 
The boy's dread reckonings were counted by 
The pallid score when on the British fell 
The leaping red-tongued rifles in full cry. 



Elands Laagte. 29 

Until by chance an ill-aimed shrapnel shell, 
Bursting above the boulders where he lay, 
Hastened its rending messages to tell; 
Told them. Behold him bleed his life away. 

Sold to the Queen, an Irish renegade. 

In hurried flight among the boulders stole, 

On Kitchener's loom with Kipling's pattern 

made. 
The White Man's Burden branded on his soul. 

" Dead hogs are best ! " — the helpless boy he 

spied — 
Vile words outrunning villainous intent — 
" Dead hogs are best ! " — with smothered curse 

he cried, 
Poising his bladed weapon as he went, — 

Straight to the heart he drove; recoiling came 
The shivering steel drench'd in the rushing 

flood. 
While o'er the glassing eye and quivering 

frame 
A mighty oath stamp' d Britain's seal in blood. 

Loud let her drum-beat roll upon the gale. 
Plant her red auction-flag on every coast, 
Word to the world that England is for sale. 
Nor questions whomsoever bids the most. 



30 Primrose Diplomacy. 



THE HAMMER. 

Tho'' the music may commingle 
With the metre and the jingle — 

Give me jagged things — I would the granite 
rend — 
Let me batter, let me shatter 
With a smashing and a crashing, 

Give me something with a hammer on the end. 

TAKE DOWN OUR FLAG. 

The British placed the Stars and Stripes beside the British 
and the German flag. 

Briton, if this be merest momentary mark of 

formal courtesy, 
'Tis well; 

But if our flag is there displayed by you 
In impudent assuming our approval of your 

present crimes, 
We bid )' ou take it down ! 

Nay, let her keep it there ; 

Think of the honor and the royal company; 

Think of the titled names, the wealth and 

power ; 
'Twill only bring new glory to the flag 
To let them keep it there. 



Take Down our Flag. 31 

Nay, let her keep the flag; 

Peace, keep the peace with Britain; 

Think of her army and her navy, 

Think of her vast domain ; 

Keep, keep the peace with Britain, 

For we may need her influence and power. 

Yes, let her keep the flag. 



Traitor and slave ! Let her not keep the flag ! 
Shall we with craven mien and coward heart, 
Fooled by her flattery, tempted by her tender 

of support. 
Give o'er this sacred emblem — the flag of liber- 
ty— 
The flag all-hallowed by the blood of Lincoln — 
The flag ennobled by its strife with Lee — 
The flag of Lee and Lincoln — and the hope of 

waiting millions, 
And basely yield it to the keeping of an alien, 
To drag and mire it? 



America, trust not the treaty-breaker; 
Entrust no sacred thing unto her keeping; 
Put not the smallest faith in all her promises ; 
When you were weak and poor, she scorn' d 

you, 
Throttled and raged to strangle you ; 



32 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Now you are rich and strong she fawns upon 

you, 
She courts you but to use you, 
Trust her not. 

Briton, take down that flag! 

The flag is ours, not yours ! 

With ruthless hands you've wrested countless 
flags, 

But you cannot have ours. 

Take down, take down our flag — 

'Tis not a poor, weak band of farmers speak- 
ing— 

But millions freemen, bid you take it down ! 

LATITUDES. 

One said that the lines were passing fair 
And sure to be copied everywhere^ — 

And she was right 
From the sunny, sunny South — 

The land of heat and light. 

Another said it was platitude, 
As well as the basest ingratitude 
To England, whose good offices of late, — 
Our Empire just beginning to incubate — 
Had talked plain English to the continental 
scofif, 



Latitudes. 33 

And said lo them all with a right good will : 

"Hands off!" 
And she thought I must a most relentless foe 

be, a 
Sad sort of case of a radical Anglophobia. 
And she was right 
From the northern night; 
And she had just come forth 
From the freezing, freezing North. 

But the third 
Had never a word 
To be lost on 
Such stuff, till her airy eye she tO'St on 
The midst of the fourth line from the 
end — 
Defend, defend — 
" If you'd like to make that line sound true, 
You should put the ' ours ' 'twist the ' but ' 
and the ' you.' " 

And she was wrong, 
For she'd spoil'd the song. 
'Twas an idle, idle plan. 
For she didn't know how to scan 
The smallest mite, 
Yet she was right 
From Boston. 



S4 Primrose Diplomacy. 



THE JINGO STATESMAN. 

Understudy of the cool commercial pirate, 

Whose outward smile and inward sneer 

Have spread abroad for many years 

Their baleful intiuence to foment 

Hate and strife^ — fit progeny of faith 

That no man lives who does not have his price. 

More dangerous than his model, though less 

able; 
For the one makes free unblushing boast 
His mock at virtue, and of him the whole earth 
Stands forewarned ; but this base imitator 
Poses in a place of public trust, 
And feigning deep devotion to the nation's 

weal. 
Pours out her treasure and her blood 
To elevate himself. 

Once such as he — less guilty far — went forth 
and hanged himself. 

He, shameless, gaily mounts his rotten emi- 
nence ; 
With arrogant assurance gazes round — 
He knows full well how many gathered there 
Are bounden slaves of his unholy bounty — 



Nail-Driving. 35 

He stands, he swells, he struts, salutes and 
smiles ! 

Ye Gods! The world is kneeling at his feet! 

Lift up, lift up the heart, lift up the voice, 

Soul of the century to come ! 

Soul of the centuries gone ! 

Torch greeteth torch; flame reacheth flame; 

From distant radiant peaks of past and future 

The answering signals come; 

Pile up, pile up the faggots, light the pile, 

Heat seven times the furnace of your scorn. 

Till something 011 this darkest planet shines 

Save gold and brass ! 



NAIL-DRIVING. 

Is the gratification which Matthew has said 
Is given by nail-driving, from 
The pleasure of hitting the nail on the head ? 
Or the joy of not hitting your thumb? 

And T wonder, in practising things of this sort, 
If the pleasures of nail-driving do 
Extend to the head of the nail ? Is it sport 
For the stuff that the nail's driven through? 



36 Primrose Diplomacy. 

I have a suspicion — I think it is right — 
That a hammerer's labors must fail 
If the aim he exclusively has in his sight 
Is to batter the head of the nail. 

Didactics I banish — ^away with such things — 
For Sill says all teachings offend, — 
'Tis but a suggestion my diffidence brings 
That hammering should have an end, — 

An end that is seen e'er the process begins, 
A plain and deliberate plan, 
For without it the skilfulest hammering wins, 
And deserves what it wins — but a ban. 

And the nail and the hammering certain 

enough, 
Unattached to some definite aim. 
Together with hammerer, hammer and stuff, 
Are all stuff and well merit the name. 

WHO BEGAN THE WAR? 

A RUFFIAN, axe in hand, comes to my front 

■door 
And rudely pounding, bids me let him in. 
He says he is my friend. 
I do not like his looks ; 
I know he has a rotten reputa>tion; 



Who Began the War. 37 

He has robbed me before; 

And often has made threats against my Ufe. 

While I delay to a-sk him a few questions, 

I hear him sending orders to his fellow-ruffians 

To bring their axes, take their stations, 

One at my other door, one each at every 

window. 
And surround my house. 

Shall I wait quietly until his fellow-ruffians 

Come with their axes, and all together 

Crash through my doors and windows, loot my 

home, 
And murder me and mine? 

Quick, quick, wait not, fling open, rush straight 

forth, 
Seize by the throat, and kill him if jou can! 

Then who began the war? The householder? 
Or the ruffian with the axe? 

Kruger and Joubert, patriots, statesmen, gen- 
eral ! 

You did right; 'tis England's own law for it; 

Good enough for her; protects the life 

Of humblest British citizen throughout the 
world ; 



38 Primrose Diplomacy. 

The sacred common law of self-defence. 

And decent, honest, manly men in all the world 

Will never let her lying politicians 

Cloud the real issue, or whitewash out 

Their own foul hatching of this wretched plot. 

CHAINED. 

Oh, you whole-educated person, look at me! 
I am but half, half-educated. See? 
So while you sit and snarl at all I do, 
I look in vain for anything by you. 

TO MOTHER ENGLAND. 

Mother England, your own Walpole said of 
you 

Before, when you were charmed by false ad- 
visers, 

That England was a " dirty, despicable is- 
land "— 

The very words! — and that, disgusted, the 
" true English " 

Had emigrated to America! 

Neither so cynical nor flattering are we. 

Again you listen to dishonest counsel. 

False to our manhood, false to our love fop 



Mutes. 39 

Did we not choose the sharpest weapons of the 

trenchant tongue you taught us, 
And flay the wretches who would ruin you? 

England, we love you. We love honor more. 
We seek your sympathy when we do right ; 
We do not want your sympathy when we do 

wrong ; 
You cannot have our sympathy when you do 

wrong. 

We do not boast that we are the " true Eng- 
lish "— 
It is enough if we are true Americans — 
But, thank the Lord ! still in the motherland 
Most of the many millions are true English, 
And when this temporary madness passes, 
Voic€S of men like Watson, Morley, Bryce, 
Can be no longer drowned, 
And England may be saved. 



MUTES. 

Evils most hideous pass before your eyes 

Unchallenged by your over-nice design 

To balance judgment. Crucified manhood 

cries : 
No answering voice from you, no little line, 



40 Primrose Diplomacy. 

No ! but instead I see you cast your powers 
Into the balance with the powers of Hell, 
Shrinking the while your shrivelled spirit 

cowers 
Along the mart where hucksters buy and sell. 

Shrivel and shrivel. Vanish. Better so. 
Soon napkined talents also sordid be, 
Filth and infection following them below 
To the stale precincts of banality. 

Worthless endowment, worse than worthless 

art, 
Wasted equipment, prostituted skill ; 
Stuffed slaves, in garb and bracelets of the part 
You prance and mimic round your owners' 

mill. 

THE SOUL COMBINE. 

The Devil sat at the hopper of hell, 

'At the foot of the chute that leads to hell, 

And sorted and sampled the fuel well, 

As the fuel came sliding dowm; 
While up at the other end of the chute, 
With a gleaming e)'e and a smile to boot, 
Sat Servitor in a shining suit, 

Sending the fuel down. 



The Soul Combine. 41 

There came an alarm from the hopper of hell, 

As the Devil floated a warning yell, 

For he didn't approve of the fuel's smell, 

As the fuel came sliding dovun ; 
For the Devil knows, as we all should know, 
That if the sulphur should go below 
A certain percentage, it would not go. 

It would cool the fires down. 

" Look out for the quality, Servy dear, 

You can't be too particular here. 

They haven't spoiled long enough yet, I fear — ■ 

You must keep the quality down." 
Then answered Servitor: "Much I fear 
The' re too many sparklers round up here. 
They're making freedom and truth too clear — 

I can't keep the quality down." 

" O Servitor, now you are far too nice; 
Each one of the sparklers has his price; 
Yoii can buy them up in a twinkling trice, 

And then you can stew them down; 
You pile them up on the barnyard pile. 
And let them ferment for a little while; 
The sulphur percentage will double the while. 

And you keep the quality down," 

So Servitor gathered the sparklers in, 
He gathered the surplus sparklers in, 



42 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Bought some with titles and some with tin, 

And the sparklers darkened down. 
And the Devil and Servitor worked it so 
That a belching flame and a ruddy glow 
Came warming up from the depth below, 
As the fuel went sliding down. 

And now, when the firmament's turning white 
With nearing promise of prophet's sight. 
When sin and its following forms of fright 

Should all with the darkness go, 
The Devil or Servitor comes in sight 
And purchases all the sparklers bright, 
And drags us back to the blackest night, 
With never a light save hell's own light, 

With its fell familiar glow. 

Sparklers, Lord, only sparklers, 

Are fruit for the devil to pick; 
Not the pure stars in heaven, 

Steady and studded thick; 
Shining and shining ever. 

Knowing no other way, 
Shining and shining brighter. 

Unto that perfect day. 



Peace and Prosperity. 43 



THE CABBAGE ROSE. 

Vain is the lingering hope to get — 
Oh ! Knight of the Hfted nose^ — 
The dainty musk of the mignonette 
From the breath of a cabbage rose. 

But even the breath of a cabbage rose 

Is the air of the templed place 

Where the holy balm of the pine-wood 

grows 
To the look on that lofty face. 

PEACE AND PROSPERITY. 

A SKUNK — pardon the term — 

I do not wish to speak offensively — 

In fact, I do not choose the term myself, 

I borrow the whole figure from a book I read 

last week, 
A book by Seton-Thompson, an Englishman, 
As good a writer as they make ; 
And Seton-Thompson says the tale is true; 
And as so few things nowadays are true, 
I did not feel as tho' 'twould do to change a 

single word : 
And so I say a skunk — 
I do not need enlightenment, 



44 Primrose Diplomacy. 

I know full well Great Britain is a lion and has 

no evil smell — 
Now for the skunk : 

A skunk one moTning, wandering in the wood, 
Was bothered by a brood of little partridges; 
He had no appetite for partridges himself, he 

never had, 
But he was guardian of the wood, or thought 

he was — 
A most convenient thought — he soon became 

convinced 
That peeping of the partridges disturbed the 

other denizens, 
Especially his skunklets stealing eggs. 
So, creeping velvet-footed through the leaves, 
He saw the last poor tiny partridge, the runt, 
Straggling alone beyond the mother's aid : 
Snap, crunch, the runt was gone. 

Then with a smile mephitic and persuasive as 

his smell, 
Licking his chops the while, 
He beamed on all the wood : 
" Peace and prosperity," he said, 
" Peace for the runt ; peace and prosperity for 

me; 
Runts have no rights; partridges have no 

rights; 



Peace and Prosperity. 45 

Runts, rights and partridges are all for 
skunks." 

The mother partridge dropped a hasty tear, 
And hurrying to save the otliers of her brood. 
Remarked to Brother Rabbit as she passed : 
" Some day that smeller'll get too big a dose." 

You say there will ba peace in Africa; 
Yes, yes ; no doubt ; the grave is very calm. 
You say there will be great prosperity ; 
Pray, whose prosperity? Prosperity of the 

dead ? 
Prosperity of the deserted wives, sweethearts, 

sisters, mothers, children, 
Whose husbands, lovers, brothers, sons and 

fathers 
Have been shot down by Englishmen? 

Returning to the skunk : 

One day more evil happened to the partridge 

brood : 
They all fell ill, and doctoring with poison 

sumach. 
Two of the smallest died. 
The mother took their little bodies 
And laid them in the pathway of the skunk, 
And he, without so strong a scent for sumach 
As for partridge — perhaps absorbed in his O'wn 

odor — 



46 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Sneaked up and gobbled them. 

Then w'hat a row ! How he did kick and roll 

and squeal ! 
And scream for help ! 
But not a beast, bird, snake or insect in the 

wood 
Would help — even his own skunklets ran 

away — 
And after a few convulsions more, 
The self-appointed guardian of the wood, 
The steward of the judgment, so to speak, 
Lay quiet on his back, with his stiff legs stick- 
ing in the air. 

Then all the forest audience, who, 'hushed and 

breathless 
With interest ill-concealed. 
But themselves safely screened at prudent dis- 
tances 
Had watched the final scene. 
Settled back with rustle of serenest satisfaction, 
And Miss Owl sitting with Mr. Hawk — 
Both of them fond of partridges — foiid of each 

other on the sly — 
Lowered 'her opera-glasses, wiped her eyes. 
And sig^hed to him: " Wasn't that grand!" 
And some of the younger members, 
During the intermission, adjourning to the 
lobby, 



Bubbles. 47 

So far forgot their manners as to join hands 

round 
And dance a jubilee jig- and sing: 
" At last prosperity and peace for all ! " 

Without invidious comparison, and speaking as 

delicately as I can, 
I ask you now : 
Had that skunk been a lion, and acted as he 

did, / 

Would they have loved him more? 
And, if not, need the lion on reflection 
Look far to find an answer to his question : 
" .What is the reason they all hate me so ? " 

BUBBLES. 

'Bubbles, only bubbles, 

Bubbles lighter than air, 
Take them, break them. 

There is nothing there. 

Nothing, only nothing. 

Nothing to you or to me — 
But see their beautiful coloring, 
And see their beautiful shaping, 
And see their beautiful motion. 

Fool without fancy, see! 



48 Primrose Diplomacy. 

They float, they float, they float 
IntO' the higher air; 

They catch the eyes of my brothers 
Down ill the darkness there. 



My brothers rouse from their darkness 
And wonder what they are; 
My brothers rise and follow them 
As the wise men followed the Star. 



My poor little bubbles rise higher 

To the breeze of the twilight born; 

My brothers go chasing after them 
Into the golden morn. 



SAMPLE. 

I CAN tell when I look in a book in a minute, 
Its weakness by judging the weakest thing in 
it. 

CHILDREN. 

O Soul, who knows no music! 
O Soul, with no sense of sound ! 
You laugh at my idle verses. 
You pull them down to the ground. 



Children. 49 

You bury them underneath jou, 
You sit with an airy sneer 
And think of the songs beneath you, 
You smile as you see my tear. 

But you smile too soon, Lord love you; 

My tear is a tear of glee; 

For there sit my songs above you 

In that golden apple tree. 

And I am sure whatever song I sing 

I have heard it before. 
You could not else, for there is no new thing 

Upon this shore. 
How glad I am to know ! 
I love the old things so. 

I am a child of Sill and of Lanier — 
Poor, pale, unrecognizable, I fear — 
Yet in my heart so warm the feelings thrill 
Towards both of them — Lanier and Sill — 
That were they here and felt that ruddy glow, 
I know that they would say I might say so! 

They both are here — Sill and Lanier — 
The East, the West — and both the best — 
The North, the South — speak through my 
mouth ! 

O that their songs unsung 
Might light upon my tongue ! 



5o Primrose Diplomacy. 



THE CAMEL'S BACK. 

This is too much 
For the critic to touch, 
And the writer of such 
Would most certainly sing 
Almost any old thing. 

Critic cast on the shelf, 
You're an old thing yourself; 
And you're one of the best 
That I love with the rest; 
But in you were my trust, 
I'd be mist, must and dust. 

SINE QUA NON. 

I WRITE of my vagrant verses. 
You frown as you ask me, Why ? 
And my answer true and terse is : 
" Who^d write of them, if not I ? " 

THE FALSE WITNESS. 

We're trying a case before the bar of heaven. 

Where is the prisoner? What is the charge? 

The prisoner is a peasant with a home-spun 
coat ; 

And he is charged with being some two cen- 
turies behind the times. 



The False Witness. 51 

Hand me the statutes, Clerk; 

Let me look up the point. 

What penalty does the law fix for that crime? 

The rule is new, your Honor, last page, last 

book ; 
A capital crime, the guilty shot to death. 

Where is the accusing witness ? 

That red-faced gentleman with the bull-dog 

lip: 
He has his belt and knife and pistol on, 
And you can hear the clink of coin 
As he goes swaggering round, — 
He is the prosecuting witness. 

And how about the red-faced gentleman ? 
Is he behind the times ? 
At least two thousand years ; 
He's living back in the age of blood and rapine, 
When fraud and force, not men, were domi- 
nant. 
He is two thousand years behind the times. 

I do not care to hear his evidence. 

Dismiss the charge, let the accused go free. 

Enter a charge against the red-faced gentle- 
man ; 

Bailiff, put on the cuffs; hustle him down 
below. 



52 Primrose Diplomacy. 



THE BEST EVIDENCE. 

A HUNDRED thieves descried a Treasury 
Presided over by a Patriarch 
Whose firm fidehty for many years 
Protected it from them and such as they. 
They must not be denied — nay, would not be; 
And so with patient, educative mind 
They set about to circumvent the man, 
By working up a situation meet 
To bring the quick fulfihnent of their aim. 
No course was left untried, no means were 

spared, 
Nor as to kind of means were questions asked. 
At last, about the height of their attempt, 
They lifted up a mighty cry of " Fraud;" 
" Corrupt old rascal ; down with such a wretch ; 
Advance the banner of reform ; remove abuse ; 
Give light and civilized endeavor way." 
Under that flag, with overwlielming rush, 
Descending on the Treasury they came. 
Banished the Patriarch, seized the hoarded 



com, 
ther 
theirs. 



And thenceforth managed it for them and 



" Now, in the name of Justice," some one peeps 
With bated breath and half-averted eye, 



Per Alium. 53 

" O Mighty Thieves, how did you prove him 

false? 
How did you know the Patriarch corrupt?" 

" You squeamish, quizzical, old-fogy fool ! 
Blind to the light of Progress and her ways! 
Drag on the car of Empire in her course! 
Encourager of treason, foe to loyalty! 
How did we know the Patriarch corrupt ? 
How could we better know, O Hard to Please ? 
You ass! 'Twas we corrupted him our- 
selves ! " 

PER ALIUM. 

Do I know Greek? No, not a bit, 
But Matthew knows enough of it 
For any three, and so you see 
He knows enough for you and me. 

Do I know Latin? Not at all, 

But Matthew Arnold knows it all, 

And so I let the Latin go 

To learn some things he doesn't know. 

No German and no French I know, 
I know no Italiano. 
But Matthew knows them every one, 
And so Pm back where I begun. 



54 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Matthew's my language and my style; 
I leave them him, while I meanwhile 
Exploit myself, content to see 
Matthew called Matthew and me me. 



FREEDOM. 

You tell me that I must conform ; 

And blinded with ignorance, indolence or 

cowardice, 
I begin to confoitn ; 

I find one wing is lame — it is broken — 
I cannot fly so high, so straight or so free — 
I strike against rock and tree — 
I am nearing the ground; 
I make my conformity complete : 
Both wings are broken, — 
I am on my face in the dust. 



Give me freedom complete : 
And with glad wings I soar into the azure air; 
I face the eye of the Sun with unshrinking eye; 
I sail straight into the front of the Storm, 
And ride upon him or baffle him, as I please; 
Nature and God and the Universe and Eternity 
Are mine. 



Join the Cry. 55 

JOIN THE CRY! 
Hear the deep boom of the rallying-cry ! 

An answer from the canyon, an echo from the 

rocks, 
A dozen echoes tossed from the mountain-side, 
A score flung from the shore of the lake, 
The bank of the river, from the depths of the 

solemn wood, 
The caves, the hills, the bush, the forest 
All give up their denizens, hundreds from 

everywhere. 

Listen to the hurrying, scurrying feet ! 
See the black cloud gathering, careering ! 
Now the whole pack sweqDing onward in full 
cry! 

Hear the chorus of the free wolves of the 
plains ! 

What do you kill to-nig'ht, free wolves of the 
plains ? 

To-night we kill the royal lion; join the cry, 
press on! 



56 Primrose Diplomacy 

Is the royal lion safe game for the free wolves 
of the plains? 

Safe game or death; join the cry, press on! 

The royal lion has gone mad, 

And raging down out of his own preserves 

Threatens the life and liberty of every beast — 

Join the cry ! Join the cry ! 

Sharpen your fangs ! Press on ! 

Or soon there will be neither wolf nor freedom 

left! 
Join the cry ! Join the cry ! Join the cry ! 

THE TOUCHSTONE. 

Flog of necessity, hope of humanity, 
Therefore the dollar is sign of grace. 

Laxness of luxury, bane of humanity : 

Therefore the dollar wears hell's grimace. 

Where does the hope end, and where does the 
hell end? 

That is the question for you and for me. 
Love is the talisman, love is the godsend : 

That is sufficient for you and for me. 

Be every dollar devoted to righteousness ; 

Let every dollar be earned for the same; 
Queer every coin that is tainted with selfish- 
ness; 

Stamp every piece with humanity's name. 



Save My Cecil. 57 



STRABISMUS. 

.Which way we? 
Coin or kith? 
Kimberley ? 
Or Ladysmith? 

CLAIRVOYANCE. 

Neither view 

On either hand; 

Only throug'h. 

The Rand! The Rand! 

SAVE MY CECIL. 

Sir Joseph, have you heard from Brother 
Cecil? 

Upon my soul and honor I have not. 

Sir Joseph, do you wage this war for dia- 
monds ? 

Sir Joseph, has Sir Cecil's diamond combine 
Its grip upon the helm of British State? 

Upon my soul and honor I do not. 



58 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Damn you, be still — I beg your pardon— 
Upon my heart, my soul, my honor, 
And every holy thing, I swear 
And swear again that it has not. 



Sir Joseph, where shall I drive the army first ? 



Sir Redvers, drive the army first and quick to 
Kimberley. 



Sir Joseph, the road to Kimberley is blocked, 
The strategy is bad, I cannot turn the flanks, 
And it will cost us rivers of blood 
To drive the army first and quick to Kimberley, 

To hell with strategy and blood ! 

Turning the flanks be damned ! 

Drive straight to Kimberley, 

For there my Cecil and his diamonds and his 

combine are, 
And I must save them first, 
Tho' England and the flower of her manhood 
Perish in black disgrace. 

Save first my Cecil! 



Colenso. 59 

FITS. 

He isn't a Sir, and I shouldn't say " Damn," 

Tho' they fit most uncommonly well ; 

Say how, Sir, less you, Sir, and " Damme," I 

- am 
To fittingly furniture Hell? 



COLENSO. 

Does "pig-sticking" make a manly man? 
Does killing " niggers " by the thousand make 

an able general? 
Rather it leaves a general lacking wit to plan 

a battle: 
He only knows to stand at farthest range. 
Safe-screened behind a hill, 
And grind an engine-gun, devised and made 

for him 
By some mechanic who at home bleeds with 

war taxes, 
And pump into the distant, all bewildered, 

helpless, undefended masses 
Hellish and cruel death. 
But meeting Strategy one day perchance, 
He does not even recognize him. 
But running up against him for a savage 



6o Primrose Diplomacy. 

Salutes him as a savage — 

Receives uncommon warm return salute — 

Opens wide wondering eyes — 

And then skedaddles. 

MYOPIA.* 

He says they see too far. 
Indeed their sight were dim, 
Saw they not far enough 
To see through him. 

SPION KOP. 

JouBERT on Spion Kop 'mid English graves, 
Graves made but yesterday and yet the waves 
Of tropic rain 'have wash'd the scanty shroud 
Of hasty clods from ofif that hurried crowd 
Of sudden sleepers. Sadly from the sight 
He turns, his glasses fixed upon the plight 
Of the famed British army there below 
Escaping headlong through Tugela's flow. 
The boastfulest of all incompetents 
Commanding those bedraggled regiments 
Conveys them through tlie river where it runs 
Close within range of Joubert's surest guns. 
One word from Toubert and the shattered 

ranks 
Were crushed forever on Tugela's banks; 



The Higher CiviUzation 6i 

But 'hour by hour the broken files passed by 
Beneath his gentle and commanding eye, 
And not -a gun spoke from that frowning 

height ; 
Only his mercy saved them in their flight. 
So rank by rank the regiments cross'd o'er 
Until the rear-guard reach' d the farther shore. 
And then the leader of that sorry host 
Flashed to the Queen his pitiable boast. 



THE HIGHER CIVILIZATION. 

The charge had reached the trenches 

And the men sprang out of sight : 

We beard the rattling down of arms 

In pitiful surrender ; 

And then the cries for quarter — 

Then the shrieks of agony. 

There were no prisoners taken ; 

Tliere were no wounded there : 

But at the roll-call in the morn 

Full sixteen glorious Dublin Fusileers 

Held proudly forth to our adoring gaze 

Their white blades drenched in deepest red. 

And then our souls expanded 

With a sense of joy most exquisite. 



62 Primrose Diplomacy. 



FLAMES. 

At last they begin to understand; 

At last they begin to see what the Gods are 

about. 
I see a gleam in the eye of the West, 
A gleam in the eye of the North, 
A gleam in the eye of the East, 
A leaping flash from the eye of the South. 
I know they are ready to come. 
Come East; Come West; Come North; Come 

South ! 
" We are here; we are come." 

Halt ! Ground — Arms ! 

There is business to do to-night ; 

There's the British Devil to fight. 

He's been killing helpless savages so long 

With engine guns, 

That all the manhood he ever had is gone, 

And his wits are going too. 

Demented and maniacal a-raging round, 

Administers Pax Britannica to every patient 

fool ; 
Stealing the coins from ofif the dead eyes of the 

weak. 
Are you ready to march ? 



Flames. 63 

" We are ready." 

The work will be bloody and black. 
And many will never come back. 
Are you ready to march ? 

" We are ready." 

Shoulder — Arms ! Forward — March ! Double- 

Quick ! Double-Quick ! 
See them press shoulder to shoulder and march 

Double-Quick! 
And see the reserves uncalled come gathering 

thick ! 

Not a soul in the country but's hearing the 

sound — 
Excepting King Mack with his ear to the 

ground. 
O Mack! we are flying, not crawling, along; 
Get up off your belly and list to our song. 

Quick ! Answer the call ! 

Fling the Orange flame to the breeze — 
The Orange is next to the Red — 
The Red of the Red, White and Blue; 
And the Green is not far, nor the Irish far, 
And next to the Green, the Blue, — 



64 Primrose Diplomac5^ 

The Blue of the Red, White and Blue. 

And the Germans will give us the Yellow too; 

And the White is all. 

Brute ! What is it the Century new 
Will bring to view ? 

Is it God ? Or the Devil Himself and Hell 
And You? 

The flames, they leap, they spread, unite, 
They turn to a conflagration bright. 
Till the morning light shall be purest white. 
To blast the black of the British night. 

MATES. 

Best of the birds that mv heart doth love 
Are the laughing lark and the mourning dove ; 
With some mystical tie they go faring together 
In every season, in every weather ; 

1 hear the laugh, then I hear the mo'an, — 
Then moan, then laugh, they are never alone. 
Always the moan has a shade of glee; 
Always the laugh seems sad to me. 

Oh why do you mourn, O mourning dove? 

" I mourn for my soul is so full of love." 

** And I laugh," sings the lark from the branch 

above, 
" I laugh for my soul is so full of love." 



Mates. 65 

Oh, my beloved, I long for your joy, 

Perfect and purified, holy joy, 

Freed by the fire from all alloy. 

The only view that is clear of fear 

Is the view that is through the purest tear. 

And the tears of joy and sorrow flow 
Through the one same well from the depth 

belov/ ; 
But the tears of sorrow must foremost flow. 
You must mourn, my beloved, must mourn, 

must mourn. 
Repent, repent ! You must mourn, you must 

mourn. 
I know that you say that you will not mourn ; 
You rage, you fight, you rebel, you scorn. 
You harden your heart and you will not mourn. 
But at last you must humble your heart and 

mourn, 
And yield and repent and bow down and 

mourn ; 
Then the tear, then the rainbow, then all burn- 
ing white light — 
And the lark leaps forth, for he can't keep still. 
He is tipsy with joy, he jumps, and tumbles, 

and bubbles and trills his thrill — 
Lo, the morn ! 



66 Primrose Diplomacy. 



BONNIE BROWN BIRD. 

Bonnie brown bird in the ivied eaves, 
Why do you fly at the windows-pane? 
Fluttering back as your hope deceives, 
Turning and facing the glass again ? 

Is it your soul that you see in there? 
Is it the soul that you'd w4sh to be? 
Stay! It is naught but a shadow fair. 
Fair, but as false as a fantasy. 

Peace! 'Tis myself I must meet, I must meet; 
Cease! 'Tis myself that I see in the glass; 
Smiles to me, weeps to me, greets when I greet ; 
Flutters and goes as I turn and pass. 

Soul of my soul, I will come, I will come. 
Beat with my wings tho' I must till I die ; 
Some call thee shadow and false call thee some; 
Well do I know thou art truer than I. 

THE SUN, THE MOON AND THE DOGS. 

I LAUGH at the critics of my messages ; 
They are not present when I get my messages ; 
They do not know from whom I get my mes- 
sages ; 



The Presence 67 

They think that the messages are mine; 

Tliey think that they are criticising me. 

I laugh and laugh and laugh — 

Dogs baying the moon ! 

And the moon laughs, too — 

But the sun, unmoved, goes shining on. 

SIMONY. 

Have I a right to copyright the words of the 

Lord? 
A Presence stands beside me in the night 
And dictates words of fire. 
Have I a right in the morning light 
To hurry and file a copyright, 
As who should say : 
" I am the Lord ; these are my words ; 
Let no man hear them till I get my pay " ? 
Sell them ? Sell them ? I have no right to sell 

them ; 
For I who received them know full well 
That never a one is mine to selL 
I am a messenger, that is all. 

THE PRESENCE. 

Here is the very spot, the very hour, 
Where yesternight and nig'ht before and before 
that and before that, 



68 Primrose Diplomacy. 

The Presence came. 

Hush, he is here again ! 

I cannot see his form, 

I cannot hear the rustle of his wings, 

But the strange thrill of power that shakes my 

Soul ! 
Put off my shoes. 

O Presence, thou art holy, holy must be, 
Or couldst not raise such holy joy in me. 
Joy ! I am holy too, holy must be. 
Or, Presence, wouldst thou nightly visit me? 
Nay, dross, dross ! Presence, I am dross ! 

Burn me ! Burn me ! 
Make me thy living coal to spread the light to 

groping men. 

Spring to the desk, seize on the pencil, 

With quaking hands write down the message 

quick, 
Lest it be lost and men go groping on. 
Rest, weary clay, close up thine eyes and 

sleep — 

canst thou sleep when Heaven is abroad ? 
Nay, nay ! I need not sleep, I need not rest, 

I need not anything, 

1 am so filled full of this newest joy ! 

And is the message done? Presence, I cling 
to thee' — 



Truth, Justice, Liberty. 69 

go not— Go! Go! Go! Thou'rt needed 

there ! 
There are so many, many groping men, 
And thou must light more living coals 
And haste them speeding on — 

Whilst I with radiant heart go dreaming 

through the day, 
Filled with thy message and thy memory, 
And waiting, eager, till the hour come — O 

speed the hour — 
When at this self-same spot 

1 kneel again. 

CUM GRANO. 

The metal of one sent 
To cry a message louder, 
Were sometimes better spent 
In buying coal-tar powder. 



TRUTH, JUSTICE, LIBERTY. 

The Queen was seated on her golden throne. 
Her purple robe in ample folds descending; 
Her flatterers and counsellors and ministers 
Standing or kneeling near. 



7o Primrose Diplomacy. 

They ushered to her audience a man, 
A tall rude peasant in a homespun coat, 
Erect, respectful, fearless, manly, strong. 
The steady fire of freedom in his eye, 
To state petition to her Majesty : 

O Queen ! I have a country and a people, 
A country and a people bought with blood. 
Sown with the tears and toil of many years. 
It is a poor rude country and the people poor 

and rude. 
But honest bread of labor every day 
They eat together in their simple homes ; 
Within their hearts thy self-same Bible flames, 
And nightly as the weary toilers lay 
Prone on the desert gazing into heaven. 
Into the splendor of the southern stars, 
They own no ruler but the Lord of Hosts. 

O Queen ! Thou too hast many people there, 
Different from us, people we do not like. 
And they complain that we curtail their rights; 
And doubtless in the difference of our ways 
Hardships arise. We know we must concede, 
As time goes on, something, nay, much, to 

them. 
Changes must come, we know it. 
Changes have come and more must come. 
A little patience would adjust it all. 



The Queen's Feast. 71 

Now come thine officers and say that we must 

change, 
And change at once, or they will make us 

change. 
Your Majesty, my people are free people; 
Liberty is their life; 

And they will die before they yield to force. 
Stay the decree, your Majesty, stay the decree, 
For in the name of Liberty, I speak. 
And in the name of Truth and Justice, speak. 



He ceased, the Court grew silent, as the Queen 
Glanced towards her ministers — then sudden 

set her face 
Hard and responseless to his patient plea : 
" Liberty? Liberty? There is no Liberty but 

mine; 
Justice ? Justice ? I know not Justice. 
Truth ? Truth ? I know not Truth. 
I have an army and a navy. 
Go tell thy people to obey my will." 



THE QUEEN'S FEAST. 

For patient centuries, the world has toiled to- 
wards peace. 



72 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Blast of the trumpet ! Burst of the booming 

gun! 
At last the Prince of Peace begins his reign ! 

Bow low, O saddened heart ! Bow low with 
shame ! 



The soimd of awrful conflict ; 

A nation fighting for its life against o'erwhelm- 

ing odds- 
Bring up your fifty thousands, call for more; 

Wheel into place the cannon, load with the lyd- 
dite shell, 

Blow the air full of hands, feet, limbs, heads, 
bleeding trunks; 

Fix now the bayonet, charge, charge, hear not 
the cry for mercy ; 

No quarter yield, drive home the blade; 

See the red blood spout forth ; 

Roll wallowing in blood, 

Lift up your throats and roar ! 

This is the feast of the most Christian Queen ! 



Pass round the titles and the medals, gentle- 
men ! Pass round the iron cross ! 



The Dream of Empire. 73 

THE DREAM OF EMPIRE. 

Dead ? Dead ? Yes, dead ! Bury him deep ! 
Gather the fragments of the mangled form — 
'Tis he, 'tis he! Here is the same rough coat 
Shot into tatters; yes, 'tis he! the same, his 

face — 
O, look not there ; look not upon his face ! 
Roll up the fragments in the tattered coat 
And throw the shapeless bundle in the grave; 
Cover him deep, cover him deep and deeper ; 
Pile up the earth and sow it thick with salt, 
Plough and cross-plough it in. 

Sleep, gentle Queen, sleep the sweet sleep of 
Peace. 

She dreams : she sees a plain in Africa ; 

'Tis night ; upon the plain a salt-sown grave — 

Her startled eyes are staring wide — 

A gaunt form rises from the salt-sown grave — 

'Tis he! 'tis he! the same rough shot-torn 

coat — 
Her blanching cheeks turn to a deadlier pale — • 
Shakes from his coat the salt and blood-stained 

earth 
And strides away; 
She sees him tread his old familiar paths 



74 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Straight to an humble cottage, where the dogs 
And cattle bay and low him welcome, 
The door flies wide, and wife and children 
Fall on his neck and weep. 

Thousands such graves; thousands such 
homes ; thousands such hearts ! 

And not in Africa alone, but everywhere. 

You sowed not salt, you sowed the earthquake 
there. 

THE PURPLE ROBE. 

And still she dreams; again upon the throne, 
Her purple robe in ample folds descending. 
The sun is dark ; the air is full of smoke ; 
Trembling, her ministers, now ashen-hued, 
Are cowering around; without, from every 

quarter. 
Come sounds of great convulsion 
As if of nature in primeval throes ; 
North, south, east, west, from every corner 

come 
Outcry and crash of battle, falling of towers, 
Bellow of guns. Nearer, nearer, nearer 
Rolls the stonn. 

From out the din and darkness comes a form — 
'Tis he! 'Tis he, the same! the ragged, shot- 
torn coat, 



The Purple Robe. 75 

The face — O, look not there! O, look not on 

his face! 
Straig'ht towards the throne he strides 
Up to the very steps — he mounts — he leans — 
She looks around for rescue, but no rescue 

there — 
Her ministers have fled — 
No friendly eye, but hate, hate, only hate, hate 

e\'erywhere. 
Falls now the crown, totters the throne — she 

flees, she flees — Stay! Stay! 
His red right hand is clutching on her robe. 



" Lord God Almighty, God of Mercy, spare! 
I am not guilty, 'twas my ministers, 
I did the bidding of my ministers, 
God, God of Truth and Justice, save! " 



Justice? Justice? You know not Justice. 
Truth ? Truth ? You know not Truth. 



And when the morning came, came, too, the 

bearers 
And bore the lifeless royal clay 
To cold and unwept tomb. 



76 Primrose Diplomacy. 



BURY THEM DEEP. 

Dead ? Dead ? Yes, dead, thank God ! Bury 

them deep! 
Gather the fragments, gatlier the fragments up. 
Here is the purple robe bloody and torn; 
Gather the fragments in its ample folds. 
Throw in the wreckage of the golden throne; 
In with the carcasses of the ministers — 
No wound on them — frightened to death — 
They keep safe distance from the firing line — 
Throw in the venal law-makers and judges; 
Drag out the men who from behind the scenes 
With corrupt hands direct the course of State; 
Throw in the gatherer of ill-got gains. 
False poets, prophets, politicians, stewards of 

the judgment. 
Renegade servants of the Prince of Peace, 
Prating of Holy War — 
Throw them all heaping in. 

Roll them all up in the torn purple folds — 
No need to dig a grave — this belching crevice 

here — 
Roll up the reeking bundle, cast it in — 
Deep, deep ! Hark, hark ! You cannot hear 

the fall ! 
Try not to fill it up; no need to sow with salt; 



Bury them Deep. 77 

Trembles the earth with sullen final rumble 
As of some beast of vengeance satisfied, 
Belches again one mighty tongue of flame. 
And closes her grim jaws! 



Sing now the paean of humanity. 

If war must be. turn it and use it now. 

Upon the wretches who create conditions that 

require it. 
Base is the public officer who takes a bribe ; 
Baser the groomed and shining gentleman who 

gives the bribe ; 
Basest of all is he who gives or takes official 

influence 
To further private aims, and says it is no bribe. 
On these and such as these turn loose your 

Maxim guns. 
Destroy dishonesty and we will give you peace ; 
Give us the truth and we will wipe out war 
And turn its millions wasted men and treasure 
Into the arts of peace and charity. 



Patience, O restless soul! 
Patience, O bleeding heart ! 
Patience, O dying patriot, fighting the ty- 
rant, — 
The time of God will come! 



78 Primrose Diplomacy. 



THE WORLD'S MASTER. 

My Master, when I was a babe, 
My mother consecrated me to thee. 
Her love, her tears, her simple prayer 
Gave my young life into thy care. 

My Master, sitting at my mother's side, 

My father, sister, brothers near me, I, a little 

boy. 
Enraptured listened to the gray-haired pastor, 
Drank in thy story of the heavenly joy. 

My Master, studying thy holy word, 
In the fresh zeal and prospect of my youth, 
True bread of life to me thy story, 
All of thy teachings radiant truth. 

My Master, when the shadow settled, 
On the dread night when mother died — 
Settled ? Nay, fled ! A streaming glory ! 
For thou wert standing at her side. 

My Master, standing at my mother's grave, 
I looked forth on the deep blue sounding sea, 
Off to the purple mountain, heard the choral 

Spring, 
And turning, found me face to face with thee. 



The World's Master. 79 

My Master, thou hast stood beside me 
Throughout all illness, vigor, courage, fear, 
And whatsoever agony betide me. 
Always the same strong presence standing 
near. 



My Master, when my little children 

Come running, throw their arms about my 

neck, 
Their mother smiling as they greet me — 
Into whose care can I confide the keeping of 

my loved ones 
Save to the Master who has stood by me? 

My Master, thou art dead, they say. 
My Master dead? When did he die? 
When did he die? He never lived 
Save as a glowing phantom of thine eye. 

How real to me the angels at thy birth ! 

How real to me the wise men and the shepherds 

and the star ! 
How real to me the stall, the smiling mother^, 

the sweet babe ! 
How real to me the scenes of all thy life! 
How real the hope that thou wert Prince of 

Peace, 
And that thy promised Kingdom had appeared ! 



8o Primrose Diplomacy. 

Cry out, cry out ! Forsaken ones, cry out ! 

Hark to the deep soft sighing of the sobbing, 

sobbing Sea ! 
The pity of the Sea, the pity that is something 

more than pity ! 
A sigh that is a sigh and is a moan, the moan 

a moan and menace, 
And that menace is a menace that might rise 

into a roar ! 

Sing now the lyric of the Star ! 
Shining so beautiful afar ! 
tWhat is thy message, Shining Star? 



I am the Sisfnal of the Lord ! 



*fc> 



I am the Flashing of His Sword 



Our Master gone, forgotten, dead, 
Deep beyond hope of resurrection call, — 
What have they given to us in his stead 
To strengthen, purify and save us all ? 

Nothing! Look forth upon the seething world 
Sinning and suffering, bleeding, dying, dead. 
Hell, only hell, damnable hell! Nothing but 

hell !' 
Black falseness, greed green with envy, hatred, 

cruelty red. 



The World's Master. 8i 

Even the men calHng themseh^es thy ministers 
Prone on their faces, Hcking the feet of the 

Golden Calf, 
Worshipping wealth and force, 
Rising in haste to put their shoulders 
To the wheel of the Juggernaut Car ! 

My Master, if thou didst not live; 

My Master, if thou dost not live, — 

Who is this standing at my side 

At midnight, morning, noon and eventide, bid- 
ding me speak, — 

Standing with flashing eyes, and whip in hand, 
cleansing thy Father's house? 



Lived, lived ? Nay, lives forever more ! 

The only hope of this sad, bleeding world. 

Dead, dead ? He never died ! He cannot die ! 

I know it by the fire raging in me when I see 
injustice done; 

I know it by the deepening pity that I feel for 
all the suffering I see ; 

I know it by my growing hate for greed of 
gold, for lies, for rank hypocrisy. 

For all the cringing, fawning slaves who toady- 
to the holder of the purse 

And let him buy their honor and erect 
6 



82 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Out of the stones hewn for the Palace of Jus- 
tice, Truth and Liberty, 
A fortress dungeon for Humanity. 



He is not dead. 

I know it by the quicker rallying of the hosts 

of righteousness — 
Hear ye not them ? 

The low murmur, the soft moaning of the sea 
Before the coming storm ? 
The smooth calm checks, and then a little 

wave ; 
Then the whole mirror broken everywhere ; 
Then the careering white-maned horses 

chafing, 
Cloud filter'd sunlight flashing on the serried 

columns massing, 
The deep bass of the booming horn. 
The roll of the drums, the screaming fife. 
The wild bugle of the wind. 
And then all trough and mountain, tumult, 
Then the succeeding surging rollers rising, 
Rising to the seventh mighty brow — 
Lift up thy crested head, O Monarch ! 
Advance, foam-crown'd, with rhythmic rearing 
Higher, higher for the final blow — 
Crash into atoms all this citadel of vanity, 
O Power of the Sea ! 



The World's Master. 83 

Lower and lower, heaving, heaving, 

The deep-measured breathing of a mighty pur- 
pose won, — 

Promise of peace, — 

Sinking and sinking, lower, lower, 

Then again advancing — again, but not so 
high — 

Call off the cohorts ! 

Each succeeding swell receding lower, lower. 

The trough and mountain gone. 

The fretted waves grow patient, 

Sinking and sinking lower, lower still. 

Unto the level of thy perfect calm. 

Mirror of Heaven. 

Then, Peace. 

Child of the stall, youth of the shop and temple, 
Man of the mart, the field, the lake, the home, 

the garden, — 
Man of the Common People — ^martyr of the 

Cro'SS ! 
Leap from that cro-ss into the glad-waiting air. 
Fill full the utmost limits of the star-crown' d 

firmament. 
Ineffable and universal Saviour, 
Lord God of Truth, Lord God of Justice ! 
Lord God of Liberty, Lord God of Hosts ! 



84 Primrose Diplomacy. 



SESAME. 

The song-birds rose and left this chilly clime 
To seek Heaven's lattice in the sweet Spring- 
time. 
But Heaven's Assessor shut them out unless 
Their billets were initialled " E. C. S." 

SAINT FRANCIS. 

We are the blood of the pirate Drake 

And the Quaker rebel grim ; 
We do not quake tho' the earthquake shake. 

And we keep the " Pelican " trim. 

Sir Francis died on his darling sea, 

He went to sleep on his sleeping sea, 

For the sea was sober and very still 

When it lost his soul and its mighty thrill. 

The Quaker calls Francis out of the sea: 

"Sir Francis! Sir Francis! Come out 

of the sea ! 

There's work for you and there's work for me., 

Come up. Sir Francis, come plough the 

blue, 

There's work for me and there's work for you." 



Saint Francis. 85 

And the waters wake with a gala g-lee, 

As they see Sir Francis come out of the 
sea, 
They dance and sparkle and bound and swell, 

For they love their darling pirate well ; 
They summon and beckon and ready make, 
They're waiting for orders from Francis 
Drake. 

O pirate Francis, we love you so, 

We offer you harbor at Francisco — 
You almost found it yourself, you know, — 

We offer you freedom to come and go. 
To outfit and man without let or pause, 

So long as you sail in some proper cause ; 
But drop the " Sir,"— we've no use for Sirs ; 

We're hoping soon a surcease of Sirs; 
Have the " Sir " changed " Saint " by the min- 
isters. 

Your friends the Franciscan ministers, 
The old Spanish mission ministers ; 

Get rid of the tawdry title taint, 
O Drake the Pirate, be Drake the Saint. 

Saint Francis the pirate sailed away 

From the shores of San Francisco Bay, 

Out through the walls of the Golden Gate 

Straight into the wind, for he could not 
wait; 



86 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Not a rope was slack, not a sail did lag-, 

And he flung to the breezes an Orange 

flag. 
Saint Francis ! Saint Francis ! Take down 

that rag ! 

what do you do with an Orange flag? 
Your sleep in the sea must have dulled you 

much, 
You seem to be thinking that you are 
Dutch ! 
Has your love for the Queen of your heart 
grown less ? 
Have you lost your love for your good 
Queen Bess ? 
Why, you were the straightest of straightest 
true, 
Can it be the Great Pirate turns traitor 
too? 
Saint Francis! Saint Francis! Come back! 
Come back ! 
You ought to be flying the Union Jack ! 

Fear not, for I love my queen no less, 

1 still shall take orders from good Queen 
Bess. 

For if you will think but a little back, 

Queen Bess never floated the Union Jack, 
Queen Bess never battled for tyranny, 



Saint Francis. 87 

Queen Bess and I fought for the right to 
be free; 
And I and my water-dogs all to a man 

Are sailing away on the " Pelican " 
To fight for that right and for nothing less, 
And we take our papers from good Queen 
Bess ; 
Nor Dutch nor English can own the sea; 

And, before I am English, I'm Free ! I'm 
Free ! 

The " Pelican " galloped with breezy lope, 

Straight and away for the Cape of Good 
Hope: 
" Ho! Dutchman, Ho! " he is shouting clear; 
*'Ho! Dutchman, Ho! You need have 
no fear. 
Were ploughing the ocean blue. 

You've w^on Queen Bess and her buccan- 
eer, 
Hold firm a little till we get near — 

And the Quakers are coming too — 
Queen Bess and I and my dogs have cleared. 
We're sailing to singe the Lion's beard." 

Art thou shining on the veldt to-night, O 
moon ? 
What see'st thou there? 



88 Primrose Diplomacy. 

" Bare-headed peasant warriors bowed deep in 
prayer." 

See the great white thunder-clouds revolving! 
Puffs from the cannon of the Mighty God ! 
Bow low, O Nineveh, bow low with shame and 
fear! 
Bow low in sackcloth and in ashes and in 
dust ! 
Fall prone upon your face, fall prone and weep ! 
Repent, repent ! Before it is too late, re- 
pent ! 
Give ear unto the warning of the Prophet of 
the Sea ! 
San Francisco, Dec. ly, i8pp. 

HERESY. 

Stedman has no word of me 
Because he never heard of me. 
Unless my memory be dim, 
Till now I never heard of him — 
Mayhap 'tis why my musing brings 
Such hapless and unheard of things. 
But should he hear me even now, 
He would omit me anyhow. 
I keq) my candle from his shrine, 
To give it better chance to shine. 
Tho' many make their steady strike 



Universalism. 89 

To be both good and Stedmanlike, 
I'd rather study to be free 
Unsteady men like you and me. 

VICTORY. 

Great Britain victor, every form of wrong 
That she has stood for stands then full in- 
dorsed ; 

Her will is law, not freely yielded, forced; 
Unfailing brood of despotism long. 

Great Britain vanquished, every form of right 
That she has stood for presses to the fore ; 

Britain is Freedom's Champion once more; 
Her best men forging forward to the light. 

Ever is cry of vengeance deadly wrong ; 

Raeinsf and hardened heart is deaf to voice 
Of conscience; only mourning hearts rejoice; 

Only to listeners comes the heavenly song. 
Repeat the brightest record of her past, repeat; 

Give her, O Lord, the victory of defeat. 

UNIVERSALISM. 

Let every bird come in. from crow to hummer ; 
It takes them all to make a single summer. 



90 Primrose Diplomacy. 



TEN THOUSAND GONE. 

A FULL ten thousand gone, 

Lost, missing, wounded, dead; 

Tho' Autumn leaves scarce flown, 
Tho' scant two moons have fled. 

A full ten thousand gone; 

There'll be ten thousands more. 

AVhy could they not have known ? 
Why not have seen before? 

Yes, tens of thousands gone. 

What of it ? They must die.. 

,Yet where is any one 

Can give good reason why ? 

Yes, tens of thousands gone. 
Best, bravest, truest true; 

None of them brought it on; 
Who is the guilty, who? 

There stands the guilty, there ! 

There stands the guilty one! 
Giving the loss no care ; 

Giving no reason, none. 



To the War Editor. 91 

God ! What a score to pay ! 

God! What a claim to meet! 
There on the judgment day, 

There at the judgment seat! 

Yes, tens of thousands gone, 
Mute at the muster-roll. 

Answer, thou guilty one ! 

Answer, thou blood-stained soul! 

ASPIRATION. 

Seek notoriety 
Unto satiety; 
Fame in a paragraph ; 
Name 'neath a photograph ; 
That is the highest of purposes now. 

Saving the aim for ambition and money, 
Worship of notice is loftiest vow. 

TO THE WAR EDITOR. 

The maddened roar of a beaten bull 
Snorting and grinding vengeance 
Is the sweet and chastened spirit 
Of a noble devotion ! 

A war begim in fraud, 
Based upon greed, 



92 ' Primrose Diplomacy. 

Must now be pressed to a finish 
With no higher motive than pride, prestige, 
revenge ! 

Repentance was once the cure 

For degradation following sin ; 

But now the only cure is blood. 

More blood, and rage, more rage, and wrong. 

Why don't you tell her she is wrong? 
Why don't you call on her to repent? 

Alas ! The voice of the Prophet is still ! 
The prophet has no cry 
But only a weather eve : 
Be in with the winner; 
The weak is a sinner. 

And that is what expansion 

Does for the Christian ministry ! 

And that th^ effect a taste of blood 

Has had upon the bearer of the mantle 

Of America's greatest Preacher of Freedom! 

THE INDEPENDENT PRESS. 

If you print them in your paper any more, 

I will stop my own subscription, 

And I'll stop John Smith's subscription; 



Expansion. 93 

I will stop my advertisement, 

And I'll stop his advertisement — 

If you wish to run your paper any more, — 

If 'tis but another day — 

You must throw them right away. 



EXPANSION. 

We know no stimulant like soulful slang 
Which truly forceful poets intersperse 
With sly obscene suggestion and with curse, 
Or boastful braggart's long-drawn bow-string 

twang. 
Awake each appetite and passion base — 
Envy, the thirst for blood, pride, avarice, hate, 
The lust of power, revenge insatiate ; 
Rouse every hellish instinct of the race. 
Behold, what riot leaps to the appeal ! 
The multitude turn'd mob, the mob, a brute, 
While justice, righteousness and truth stand 

mute — 
All noble senses now too dead to feel. 
Turn men to fiends, dance round the red 

abysm : 
Proclaim blood carnival of patriotism ! 



94 Primrose Diplomacy. 



REVERSION. 

Give silence now unto the poet's song. 
Ideals are vapors that we must beware^ — 
But stuff to stifle men who do and dare. 
Peace, poesy and prophecy have led too long. 
The cause of Christ is but an empty name; 
There is no Christ, there is no Christian cause. 
Priest, preacher, pastor, propagator, pause! 
Earth grows too slow, republican and tame. 
King Kipling comes : red revolution rife! 
Makes letters mercenary, vulgar, low ; 
Makes power conscienceless ; turns friend to 

foe; 
Makes mankind meet for brutishness and 

strife. 
Averts our faces from the whitening East; 
Abases us before the Ancient Beast. 



THE MORTAR-BOX. 

At it again! 

Spoiling the sonnet form ! 

Filling with hate what only love should feel; 

Crowding rude, ugly, uncut boulder shapes 

With an evil eye 

Into the delicate film of an iris hue. 



The Mortar Box. 95 

What is form? 

'Tis but a box to set mortar in. 

As soon as the mortar is set, away with the 

box! 
Lay on the mortar a coat of pure plaster then 
And trace in it beautiful shapes. 
Pile on the pedestal marble and jasper and 

onyx and opal stone, 
And carve more shapes, new shapes, more 

beautiful, 
Breathing them out at the top into angel 

forms — 
Air, mere air, yet realer than all the realm. 

Rob me not of my angels to save your mortar- 
box. 
If your stair can help me on my way, 
With its rounded banister and arabesque bal- 
cony, 
Oh, let me tread it now. 
As I am finding my life and my step grows 

firm, 
It is lighter, lighter, too, is my step. 
I am throwing off mortal things — 
My shoes are gxDne and my stick is gone — 
How could I mar your stair if I would? 

Lend me your arabesque stair. 
'Tis only a mortar-box. 



96 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Tho' you see them not, 

Tho' you hear them not, 

That mortar-box is my balcony p£ angels. 

THE LITERARY OUTLOOK ON 
JANUARY 6, 1900. 

I'm William Lyman Abbott Shakespeare Kip- 
Hng. 

You'd scarcely know me in my present rig. 
A decade since, I was the merest stripling; 

I question my own sameness, I'm so big. 

O stranger, softly tread about this wonder! 

O pray, what may this queer creation be? 
O is it fact, or some expansion blunder? 

O am I Lyman Abbott, Bill or me? 

It may be hinted that it may be neither — 
This thing with head of Shakespeare, tail 
of me — 

And it may not be Lyman Abbott either : 
It may be Mabie, may it not? May be? 

O renegade religion, sinking fast, — 

Misguided son of freedom-loving sire, — 

In vain you harness genius of the past 

To drag your quicksand doctrine from the 
mire. 



The Southern Cross. 97 

Each downward step another such supplies, 
In quick succession slide your parts from 
view ; 
The genius struggles, snaps the chain, and 
flies: 
He leaves the quicksand and the depths to 
you. 

THE SOUTHERN CROSS. 

Earth narrows as we near the Southern Pole ; 
We turn to right, to left, less land, less land, 
As closer comes the sea on either hand. 
And then in front — the sea surrounds the 

whole. 
'Tis night; look up and see the splendid sky; 
You stand upon this rock-girt, storm-bound 

cape ; 
Above, incomparable systems shape; 
Earth shrunken, gone — the stars supremely 

nigh. 
O North, with all your breadth, so worldly- 

W'ise, 
So civilized, progressive, up to date. 
Beware lest, wisdom-proud, you under-rate 
Matchless, majestic, millioned Southern skies. 
Filled with the ferment of the earthly leaven : 
Unrobed, unspirited, unsouled for Heaven, 



98 Primrose Diplomacy. 



TO- WIT. 

Chivalric sifter, whose unequal till 
Pays one to Millicent and two to Sillj 
When as her following by merit met, 
Would bracket her with'n his scilicet. 



PHOEBE. 

First mirrored in Arequipa*? g'ass, 

Faint point upon a photographic plate, 

We know thy distance, orbit, motion, rate, 

Tho' never mortal eye hath seen thee pass. 

Altho' thyself but Saturn's satellite, 

Thou yield'st to Jupiter and to the Sun, 

Ready allegiance as thy course is run : 

We worship thy new knowledge of th^ir might. 

Unseen, obscure and undiscovered s^i'l, 

Scarce located upon the stellar chart, 

Unrecognized as playing any part, 

Yet may thy influence penetrate the whole '. 

The Master's motions in thy course repeat. 

And lo, the Universe is at thy feet. 



Cronje. 99 

CRONJE. 

When that conspiracy most despicable 
Rear'd its vile head to strike thy country down. 
Quick to the rescue rush'd that sturdy soul, 
Throttled the Beast, down liung him hard, 
Wounded and raging, on the bloody ground — 
The writhing spectacle of the world's contempt. 



Wounded and raging, writhing, but not dead — 
'Tis pity that thy mercy spared him then — 
From that same shameful day until this hour, 
His pride stung deep, hate, bitter, born of guilt, 
Fresh-fuel'd up, low disappointed lust 
O'erleaps the coward current of his veins; 
The old, but new stirr'd combined flames of 

hell 
Concentre white-hot fevers of revenge. 



Leagued with curs'd hell-hounds of the pit let 

loose, 

Mail-clad malignity trimnphant leers; 

Marries brute force to avarice and fraud ; 

Robs stan-ing millions to pay murder's bills; 

Flies even challenge, sneaks from solemn bond, 

Bullies and boasts when double ten to one. 
L.ofC. 



100 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Simple and silent peasant, have no care; 
Ill-chance of warfare leaves no stain on thee. 
Gloats braggart malice over thy defeat; 
Yet stand'st thou deathless in the halls of 
Fame. 

Wait, only wait! Patience, a little while! 

Soon, soon, this federated tyranny 

Has eaten its own sordid vitals out — 

The bloated carcass shrinks; the puffed flesh 

Wrinkles, splits; the limbs drop off — 

Tumbles the rotten frame to quick decay. 

Fear not, devoted little sister land ! 

'Tis not in vain thy tears and blood are shed, 

Not wasted is this cruel agony. 

The mother-home of that heroic soul 

No power can hold in tyrant shackles long. 

Triumphant thou must be, resplendent shine 

For ages after the despotic hand 

Now clutching at thy throat to stifle thee 

Has fallen nerveless, withered into dust. 

Fade, foes of Freedom, foul assassins, fade! 
Count not your nearness to that lustrous light 
Can from oblivion save your shameful 

names, — 
Blotted forever out, or, known at all. 
Remembered only to be spat upon. 



The Poet Visits the Cape. loi 

Alan most majestic! Patriot the kingliest! 
Favorite of Courage! Freedom's darling son! 
Rude, yet how noble! Humble, yet how high! 
Weeps now the world that all her treasure- 
house 
Contains no honor worthy to bestow on thee! 

THE GREATEST COMMERCIAL 
ASSET. 

Paint on her banner the three golden balls, 
Sign of the hook-nosed statesman financier. 
Stocks are more cheerful, margins looking up; 
Cinches an-d corners take new heart again. 
The manager is on his way towards home; 
The bucket-shop re-opens with a boom. 

THE POET VISITS THE CAPE. 

Is it safe at the Cape, now, Roberts? 

Is it safe at the Cape? 
The lie I started is speeding on, — 

It is speeding on, 
But it goes too slow for me; 

I must come. I must come, 
I must come and push it some; 

In idleness I chafe; 
Is it safe. Lord Robeits, safe? 

Is it safe at the Cape? 



102 Primrose Diplomacy. 

How many have you killed, Lord Roberts, 
• killed? 

How many thousand shallow graves are 
filled? 

How many rot in the trench on the mountain- 
side ? 

Ho'W many corpses swing in the river-tide? 

How many ghastly wounded groan and die 

In the desolate fields where the shattered 
homesteads lie? 



Splendid! Splendid! 
Imperial ! Imperial ! 
My ! What stuff to make poems of ! 

How many pounds per line? 
My ! What stufif to make stories of ! 
Pounds per page are mine ! 
Material! Material! 



Chances! Come! Chances! 
Come, Englishmen, come! 
Englishmen from Canada! 
Englishmen from Australia 
Englishmen from here and there! 
Englisihmen from everywhere! 

Come! Hearken! Come! 



The Sign of the Elephant. 103 

Gold mines ! Gold mines ! 
Diamonds! Diamonds! 
Thousands of acres of arable land ! 
Thousands of acres of grazing land ! 
Rich and rare, 
Vacant, bare 
Owners dead, 
Shot, buried, fled. 
Listen to ME! 
I am MIGHT! 
I am the BLIGHT! 
I am the herald of the NIGHT ! 
I'm the newest mouth of the latest pit 
And the lurid glare in the midst of it. 
I AM HELL! 



THE SIGN OF THE ELEPHANT. 

Having labored many summers without 

ceasing. 
In the cultivation of my own demand, 
Till the latter is established and increasing, 
'Tis no longer goods I'm selling — but the 

brand. 



Put my name on; that's enough; the kind's 
no matter. 



104 Primrose Diplomacy. 

I'm so busy reaping- now I cannot sow. 

Tho' the character grows slim, the purse is 

fatter. 
If it bear the charmed impression, it will g^o. 

And what are names for in this world of 

spending, 
From titled heads' to writers' of a song, — 
If not available for sale or lending, 
To help ourselves and families along? 

The noble lends his title to the boomer 
And gets his big percentage of the swag ; 
If poet cultivates the public humor 
He should not have to bear an empty bag. 

He shall not, no, he shall not, — I assure it. 
See the shekels pouring headlong to his till. 
Can he keep the wound a-gaping, and not cure 

it, 
Ere the carnival is ended, he's his fill. 

THE 'ANDKERCHIEF. 

'E CUSSED at Modder River 
Where Smutty Chambers dies, 
'Is bloomin' muddy liver 
All chronic damn-your-eyes, — 
Gawd! 'Ow 'e swore! To su'thard, 



The Gong. 105 

Where dust and horse-dung- sift, 
The beg-gar's soul Hes smothered 
Beneath the Stinkersdrift. 

I belong to the race that was born to reign, 

To the ruling class of that race. 

If any one questions my right again, 

I'll spit in his blasted face. 

As I sample my beak over land and sea, 

From the line unto either pole, 

If any one ventures to meddle with me, 

I'll blow my nose on his soul. 

THE GONG. 

Behold the foul-mouthed, fouler-minded 

trumpet 
Who heralds the new era forth, forsooth. 
When manhood takes the vile commercial 

strumpet, 
And flings behind him virtue, beauty, truth. 

When to blind lust you've yielded up your 

being, 
And sacrificed all honor to desire; 
When character and self-respect are fleeing, 
That is the kind of spirit you require. 



io6 Primrose Diplomacy. 



THE WEAVER. 

Flashed by the wire from England unto 
York; 

Flashed by the steamer back to Africa; 

Flashed by the wire now to London town; 

Now here, now there, here, there, now every- 
where, I fly — I weave. 

Like the led thread the fascinated eye 
Follows the flashing of my shining mark : 
I weave, I weave, with purpose for myself; 
I weave, I weave, for profit to myself ; 
I weave, I weave, the pattern of myself ; 
All, all, and all, and everywhere is self — My- 
self. 

What if the warp and woof be stained with 

blood ? 
What if the wind play weepings through the 

thread? 
No matter : I am weaving for myself, — 
I cannot stay for blood or cry of pain. 

Snatch from the loom the hideous winding- 
sheet ! 
Roll up the weaver in his patterned shroud ! 



riie Butcher-Bird. 107 

Shotted and blood-stained, sink the burden 

deep, 
Deep 'neath the ample secret-saving sea. 

THE BUTCHER-BIRD. 

O BUTCHER-BIRD of the trenchant word, 

O bird of the bloody song, 
Must every word of the butcher-bird 

Be nasty, to be strong ? 

O prophet and priest of the human beast, 
O priest of the prevalent prayer, 

Must the mystic sign of the right divine 
Of mighty worth to rule the earth 

Be slang and smut and swear? 

As we follow the bent of your argument 

To the point of your policy. 
In your tale we can trace the opposite case 

Till we sympathize with the sinner that 
cries 
" Drive the Inglestink into the sea ! " 

And this is our word to the butcher-bird, 
Our word to the songs he sang : 

We hope we have heard your ultimate word 
Of boast and brag and bully-rag 

And smut and swear and slang. 



io8 Primrose Diplomacy. 

And this is our word to the butcher-bird, 
Our word to the songs he mig-ht sing : 

Get down off your plank on the garbage-tank 
And drink at some cleaner spring. 



BLOEMFONTEIN. 

Ten huddled dying in a space for one; 
One watcher where the need requires ten — 
And he a rough, untaught incompetent. 
At nig'ht hot fever touches icy ground 
Without a comfort or a guard between, 
And freezing air enswathes the tossing limbs. 
While in the stinking day the haggard face 
And shrunken, helpless hands are garmented 
In loathsome, clinging, crawling insect shroud. 
And soon they hustle out the lifeless form 
To hide in the already glutted ground — 
And wedge two waiting wretches in his place 
To slide in turn adown the sure incline. 
And this the guerdon that the faithful win 
By serving the Great Mistress when she calls: 
Forgotten and forsaken — both of these — 
For the Great Mistress in her bargaining 
Has sold her soul unto a soulless Lord, 
And is too busy doing his behests 
To hear the call of conscience any more. 



Dissolution. 109 



DISSOLUTION. 

Now groom'd and oily insolence proclaims 
Her high exclusive jurisdiction here; 
Her curling lip, late quivering with fear 
For manhood deep humiliation names. 
Her carpet soldier, bare escaped the toils, 
Be-bulletins his boasts of petty deeds; 
Hawk-visaged statecraft banded rapine leads 
To rend and fatten on the reeking spoils. 
Commercial poets clang their auction-bell 
To advertise the funeral of verse, 
While asses garlanded conduct the hearse. 
And idiotic ululations swell. 
The howling mobs run riot in her streets 
To celebrate the turning of the tide, — 
They'll howl to-morrow on the other side 
When history her prophecy completes. 
The price of blood clinks in her closing purse. 
To mock her starving subjects' dying curse; 
Unburied thousands piled ?.nd rotting there 
Pollute the dead and pestilential air: 
Offended Nature laboring to portray 
The moral stench of empire in decay. 



no Primrose Diplomacy. 

JOUBERT. 

No tawdry decorations on his breast; 
No unearned honors stamp'd by privilege; 
But simple Piet, the gentleman, the Lion, 
Piet the man. 

Alas ! Invincible to tyranny, 
The sorrows of his country bore him down; 
The dear dust of the veldt envelopes him. 
Folds her fond arms about him, claims her 
own. 

Another score against the Slave of Hell ! 
And Joubert's soul flames forth to join the 
heralds of swift judgment. 

ORANGE RIVER COLONY. 

Strike out the " Free," 

And henceforth let it be 
Upon the chart another blot of red. 

Grind the heel deep, 
And henceforth let it keep 
Its iron weight upon the serpent's head. 

Drive the blade home. 

And let the life-blood come — ■ 



Free England. m 

What rights have common men against the 
Queen ? 
Pour salt and gall, 
And twist the blade withal. 
Till smiles bedeck the sated royal mien. 

God! — if there be a God? 

By all that makes thee God — 
Rouse universal manhood from the dead 1 

God of the brave and free 

Return this infamy 
A thousand times upon the tyrant's head. 

FREE ENGLAND. 

I STOOD Upon a platform in a good old English 

town, 
And I stated plain my sentiments right there : 
I said it was an outrage that the Dutch were 

crowded down 
By the multi-politician-millionaire. 

My hearers were responsive and intelligent and 
quick — 

The flower of the civilized and free — 

And the liberal air of England was soon sat- 
urated thick 

With the gifts they freely showered upon me. 



112 Primrose Diplomacy. 

A reckless prodigality quite hitherto unseen — 
Free bricks, free boots, free cabbages and 

such — 
If any one imagines that free Englishmen are 

mean, 
He doesn't understand the rascals much. 

They 'help'd me from that platform — free ride 

upon free rail — 
Free tar, free brush, free feathering, and then 
Free ambulance, free hospital, free officers, free 

jail, 
Free soldiers to protect me from free men. 

Free surgery, free liniments, free plaster and 

free rest — 
Then I stole me to Southampton by the sea. 
Where I hail'd the earliest steamer that was 

leaving for the West, 
Free America is free enough for me. 

THE BRITISH SLAVE. 

Courage? The courage of the driven herd 
Goaded to mad and congregated rush 
They know not why nor where. For coward- 
ice 
Makes certain what obedience does but risk. 



The British Slave. 113 

The rather facing chance 011 heated fields 
Than the sure level files of cold decree. 

Honor? When men by questionable means 

Aim to attain dishonorable ends, 

Does the mere tool employed by such as these 

Acquire honor by this talisman: 

That being but a tool he lacks the guilt 

While lacking likewise wit to share the gain? 

We do destroy more honor than we save. 

The flag? That final refuge of the wretch 
Who, seeking to divert the public gaze 
From his own chamber business, nimbly flings 
Her blinding folds upon the horns of judg- 
ment. 

Country? Nay, commerce. Principle? Nay, 

gain. 
Courage, the flag and honor? Nay, despair 
And chance, adventure, enterprise, and 

change, 
And other motives mean and manifold 
Mingle to torture the unsteady helm 
That steers our trail of blood across the chart. 

Mere marionettes, automata, machines 
With wheels and screws, and levers to be 
pulled ; 
8 



114 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Distant and irresponsible caprice 

Bids us but dance the figures it designs — 

Strabismic strategies conducted by 

Some squinting monocle of statesmanship. 

We are the crisping playthings of the flame, 
Used and discarded, dropped into the pit. 
Shovelled and tossed and scattered on the 

ground 
A sort of cinder-track of refuse stuff 
For panting privilege to race upon. 
And when at last they blunder to the goal 
Flames to the heaven with mighty blazoning 
The record they have made, how well they 

look 
After, forsooth, the sufiferings borne by us. 

Give them new lands from better owners 

filched. 
Give them new names to make worse records 

on. 
Give them new pins to stick upon their coats. 
For us tig'ht jackets and the monkey cap, 
For us the stinking pipe and bunch of weed, 
Liquors galore, and dirty thumb-stained pack 
With photographs of female nudity — 
For us the proper furnishings are these, — 
And for our shifting, melancholy roof. 



"A Purple Tail-Patch. 115 

Why should we give a thought to any thing? 
Why should we aim for character or name? 
Let us drink deep and drink again till morn, 
Carousing with the common midnight wench, 
Till rounded up towards sunrise by the guard. 

What matter ? Our philosophy is good ; 
For e'er the sun upon the morrow sets, 
The body-snatchers search some ragged hill, 
Scratch out a shallow ditch to dump us in, 
Begrudge us even covering enough. 
So that the midnight showers having passed 
And shed their tears, the stooping vulture 

comes 
Responding aptly to the mute appeal. 
Seizes and shakes the lifted, outstretched hands 
In warm and carrion welcome. 



" A PURPLE TAIL-PATCH." 

Victory ? 
O England ! 'Tis not victory, but death, 
Death and decay ; but were it victory, 
And victory unquestioned, 'twere too dear 
At such a price of honor sacrificed. 
Ancient ideals destroyed and manhood gone. 
Kneel ! kneel ! In deep humiliation kneel ! 
In penitence and shame forgiveness seek; 



ii6 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Wash you and purify and quickly turn 
From sordidness and brute accomplishment 
Back to that better name by selfish hands 
Reft of her beauty and nobility. 
Lift, then, again the upward heart towards 

heaven. 
So may the flag once more, cleansed from her 

stains. 
Bear to the glad and universal skies 
Reflected love on all her sun-illumined waves. 



UNDERTONES. 

Mine be the theme and let me sweep the 

strings. 
And I will make such music to thy soul, 
As lendeth careful sorrow lightest wings, 
And mendeth purpose broken-hearted whole. 

Rest in the shadowy bower leaf-entwined, 
Face the cool fragrance of the ocean breeze, 
Soothed by the murmur of the brook combined 
With the soft whisper of the summer trees. 

Sing the sweet language of the violet 
By blood-red passion to the oak-tree told; 
The tripping daisy with her minuet; 
The acclamation of the marigold. 



Undertones. 117 

Flame, torch of meadow, through the living 

green ; 
Flash on the noonday wave, shaft of the 

King; 
Wheel to the storm, O Monarch of the scene; 
Lord of the midnight, full thy beacon swing. 

Sing the still majesty of mountain-side 
Uplifted o'er the bending of the shore 
Where kneels the oft-confessing tide 
Mid organ peal of breakers' solemn roar. 

Kneel! kneel! my soul, blend in the sacred 

rite; 
Roll the great storm's triumphal cars; 
Swung in the hush'd attention of the night; 
Bathed in the ancient message of the stars. 

Splendor of splendors, blaze of jewels rare. 
Steady ejffulgence of the eternal brow, 
Turn but the vision of thy spirit there. 
Prostrate thy soul in adoration now. 

Rise then, my soul, thy new horizons clear, 
Radiance ineffable, unknown, undream' d — 
Innumerable companies attend thee here. 
Thy race, and with thy race, thy self, redeemed. 



ii8 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Thy race and all thy race, for missing one, 
The travail of the ages were in vain, 
The eon-searching sacrifice undone, 
The froAvning heights confronting us again. 



All will be there, the lofty and the low, 

For the great leveller shall dip and fill. 

And pour them on that sphere where ethers 

flow 
And in impartial showers of love distil. 



All ! All ! Not one, not one is lost, not one, — 
Were one, my sorrow and my joy were vain — 
Soul of my soul, son of my darling son. 
Home to thy home, heart of my heart, again. 



Open my window towards Jerusalem, — 
Flood-gate of elemental light — 
Voice of the mating dove, sweet Bethlehem, — 
Breathing her incense on the night. 



Mute be the instrument, O stroke inadequate. 
Cease from thy labored lisping, mortal tongue. 
Loveliest of golden tales reiterate, 
Eloquent silence of the song unsung. 



It Is Well. 119 



IT IS WELL. 

Dead in the trenches, a woman, 
Killed by an English shell; 
Spared they not even a woman? 
Dead! She is dead. It is well. 

Children are waiting her. How is it well ? 
Well that she never knew — 
Empire speeding that pitiless shell. 
Reaches her little ones too. 

Flames are consuming the homestead, 
Kindled by English decree, 
Vainly the weeping ones pleaded — 
Grandmother, little ones, flee. 

Dead in the trenches, the mother; 
Dead on the hillside, the men; 
Children torn one from another — 
Ashes and nakedness then. 

Parentless, homeless and friendless, 
Blows by Britannia dealt. 
Brutal and blundering, endless, 
Blasting the face of the veldt. 



120 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Well ? Was it well that the empire 
Willed, and this wilderness came? 
Well, when she wakes to the vampire 
Outraging thus in her name. 

Bargaining, brokerage statescraft, 
Blood-guilty, black, devil-bought. 
Deep drink the red reeking hate-draught. 
Hail the high hell you have wrought. 

Care not ? I know that you care not ; 
Heaven forbid you should care 
Lest through repentance you fare not 
Foul as you're fitted to fare. 

Flint Is your face to repentance. 
Granite your soul to the same, 
Steady comes gathering vengeance, 
Blots out and grinds out your name. 

OVERTONES. 

Say what you please of the darkness, I say it 
is peopled, 
Peopled with voices and spirits who speak 
unto me, 
Me unto cities lead, cities all golden and 
steepled, 
Steepled with spires of the morning. The 
sound of the sea — 



Overtones. 121 

The sound of the sea I can hear, and I say it 
is thrilling. 
Thrilling with voices and spirits who call 
upon me, 
Me upon waves of delight it is rolling and 
filling. 
Filling the midnight with motion. The 
starlight I see, — 



The starlight I see and I say that the starlight 
is calling. 
Calling with voices and spirits that flow 
above me, 
Me aibove everything lifting, and flowing and 
falling, 
Falling and flowing, and filling and fash- 
ioning me — 



Filling and fashioning, midnight and starlight 
and ocean. 
Ocean of voices and spirits who surge 
around me, 
Me around cycles lead, cycles of music and 
motion 
Motion of midnight and light-waves and 
waves of the sea. 



122 Primrose Diplomacy. 



THE PITY OF THE PUSHIFUL. 

Cat. 

Guinea, the cat, was weak; Tricksy was 

strong — 
Tricksy the canine of uncanny mien, 
And mighty full of appetite and spleen — 
Majestic back-yard boss unquestion'd long, 
Hi'S kitchen forage fed her nuptial throng, 
While mussed her paw shares hitherto 

right; 
Oh ! but those windy cats offend the night 
And sing no end insufferable song. 
That no dog yield to no cat nor renown 
Nor scraps, lest lofty discontent 
Him drown'd, wakes strenuous Tricksy bent 
On business, wearing Virtue's kinky frown, 
So mad, gesticulating up and down, 
Cat-'unting, dawn or dark, incontinent. 

Dog. 

Not unto us is nothing. Idle boast 
That no cat never lives who preys on me? 
I hear her vile voice jeering, so I'll see 
That Madam ptirry puss from sill to post. 
I'm least avenging w'hen I've eaten most. 



To Tommy and Budge. 123 

And most is all, and nothing more nor less; 
I'm poor, but fatter grow, let cats confess, 
On stronger victuals than cold tea and toast. 
We can't let cat-gut guttural increase; 
Concatenated kennels send decree 
That racy cat commingling must not be. 
I'll gobble Guinea ! Liberty and Peace ! 
Shall pimpled pussy seal those pounds of fat? 
Begone, by Jingo ! Sick 'er, Tricksy ! Scat ! 

THE MORTAR-BOARD. 

She limps no more, the Isle of Man, upon her 
broken cane. 

But gaily, as in days of yore, dances and skips 
again. 

No pensioned nightingaley bird nor high- 
beaked Polly thrush 

With fifty weeping pounds a year to make his 
Country blush. 

Pie's no ex'austin' Alfred nor a laureated Lord, 

But he's just a simple Manxman with a com- 
mon mortar-board. 

TO TOMMY AND BUDGE. 

Children of the most Chivalric man 
Who graced the years of this hard century, 

1 image to myself what you should be 



124 Primrose Diplomacy. 

As here your little monuments I scan. 
How universal, polished, perfect, round, 
How lovely, gentle, radiant, faithful, true, 
The pure ideals he shaped for all of you ! 
Alas ! His hopes lie buried in the ground ! 
Stay ! With one stroke those boys have made a 

name. 
And handed down their history to fame! 
Sons of a genius, geniuses they are : 
They saw this present prospect from afar; 
Their lucid souls with prophecy complete 
Co'uld see a circus in a Bardic Meet ! — 
They saw, they shuddered, as the vision came, 
They turn'd, they fled, they died — to save their 

shame. 



SAINT GEORGE. 

Knight-errant of the dilettante pen. 
He hovers on the margin of the fight 
And plagues the captains of the coming light- 
Darts in and out and in and out again. 
A- jolt upon his highest-stepping style. 
Tight-laced within his stiff parentheses^ 
He marshals his uncouth menageries, 
And thinks he holds the enemy awhile. 
Circling the light, and darting in and out, 
He borrows from the greater radiancy, 



Saint Matthew. 125 

And almost glitters in such company, 
Yet grows, while essaying to fleer and flout, 
Inextricate and dazzled as he does : 
Impaled on Matthew let the beauty buzz. 

SAINT MATTHEW. 

Blinded by the inexorable glare 

Of the consuming Present, 'tis in vain 

Immortal aspiration seeks to gain 

Her perfect destiny, while burning there. 

However bright the Present, she at last 

Confesses to her failure, she alone 

Can never save, — humanity must own 

The steady beacons of the Solemn Past. 

Bid every flame upon the action flow ; 

Ponder the near and distant signal fires ; 

Gather the light from all the golden spires ; 

Present and Past blend in the coming glow : 

Kneel, then, with reverent eyes the image scan ; 

At radiant dawn appears perfected man. 

Matthew ! No matter what your pedigree. 
Or Saxon, Norman, Roman, German, Celt, — 
All barriers of race and country melt 
When once your smiling countenance I see. 
It matters not or whether right or wrong 
Your views of Homer, Milton, Shelley, Keats, 



126 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Or foul or fair your criticism treats, 

Or how eternal your own noble song. 

But matters much with what a master-blade 

You slice the English bladders to the core 

And let the wind out till the rascals roar, 

And leave them frothing, fainting, flattened, 

flay'd. 
I swell with satisfaction at the sight ; 
You please me till I tingle with delight. 



What are these tears that well into mine eyes, 
That well, and well again, and overflow. 
As if from far-fed fountain of the skies? 
There is no voice or vision that I know, 
Yet memories unspeakable arise. 
What is the light that lifts my spirit so, 
And when the everlasting " No " denies. 
Straightway denies the everlasting " No " ? 
It is the flash of that same master-blade 
Unsheathed unquenchable before the cloud 
Which holds the prospect in unending shade 
By the enigma answerless allowed. 
The same lithe-fashioned weapon keen and true 
That stirred my laughter, made me rage and 

rail, 
Dissevers the impenetrable veil 
And lets the flood-light of the heavens through. 



Saint Matthew. 127 

Laughter and tears, rage and a patient peace, 
Such are the varied chords he plays upon. 
Play on, O Master-player, never cease 
Until the golden harmony be won. 
Play on, play on, play to the everglade, 
Play on, play on, play to the fringing pines, 
Pipe to the shadows of the farther woods. 
Call down the stairway of the plunging gorge, 
Sound o'er the billows of the sinking hills, 
Rouse the death-level of the yellow plain- 
Answer the echo of the wandering bell. 
Play on, play on, yield not, now chide, now 

warn, 
With magic melody go pleading forth. 
Intoxicate, persuade, advise, compel, 
Weave the most exquisite of winsome lay 
And pour its soft enchantment everywhere 
At last, at last, unto the uttermost 
The quivering, undulating note attains. 
And penetrates and permeates and moves : 
They stop, they wait, they listen, they look up, 
They waken to some far sweet memory. 
They turn, they catch the distant mountain 

flame, 
They follow upward to the living green. 
Play on, play on, victorious pipe, play on. 



128 Primrose Diplomacy. 



NOT A COLLEY. 

Returned some who with Colley were. 
While Colley low was laid ; 

But he, unlike a Colley, Sir, 

Came back — 'the others stayed. 

Success in war is not the knack 

Of fighting or of flying; 
The crowning art is getting back 

While others do the dying. 

Lay down their rifles and their swords. 
Vain, vain ! these idle tears ; 

Enough that being now the Lord's, 
They cannot too be peers. 

The pick and shovellay beside 
Their graves anear and far; 

And, then, to praise the turning tide. 
We'll sing a brief crow bar. 

THE ISLE OF MAN. , 

Oh, where is the Isle of manly men? 

'Twas England once, I ween. 
But 'tis not now, nor'll be again. 
The Isle of Man is the Isle of Men, 

And Brown is the Man I mean. 



Cecilian Whispers, 129 



CECILIAN WHISPERS. 

They sat in the Guildhall all alone, — 

The Cecils and Uncle Sam, — 
Uncle Sam and the Cecils and Joseph Choate — 
A-carving- the latest imperial shoat, — 
A-parcelling brain and blood and bone, 

And hide and hair and ham. 

Uncle Sam had no business there at all, 
For he doesn't belong in the Mayor's hall, 
And his mind and his manners are rather raw 
For the sons and nephews and sons-in-law, 
The Marquis here and a Sir or so, 

And Barons and Earls and Lords, — 
And they wouldn't have let the Uncle go 
Except in the tow of that Joking Joe 

Who shines at their festal boards. 

At the right of the Marquis sits Pushful Joe 
(Kynoch and Hoskins are not there), 
And he points his finger here and there 
To the juicy bits on the bill of fare. 
As he whispers the Marquis a gentle word 
About the worm and the early bird, 
With a nod towards Josep'h Junior's chair, 
Who sits 'twixt the Cecils and Cecil 
Rhodes — 

9 



130 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Right opposite Uncle and Joking Joe — 
And the knoAving ones know what that nod 
foreibodes, 
or it's odds his nods mean so. 

Then Joking Joseph whispered low 

To his Uncle Sam to do so and so : 

" Just look at me, Uncle, and do as I do, 

And you'll seem to be smart as I don't care 

who: 
And if you go wrong," spoke Joseph Choate, 
" I'll give you a poke, or a pull on your coat." 

The Marquis was mad — 
Uncle Sam did rear; 
The Marquis was sad — 
Uncle dropped a tear ; 
The Marquis laughed — 
Uncle Sam did roar ; 
The Marquis quaffed — 
Uncle Sam quaffed more. 

Marquis at last let the compliments go, 
And a knowing nod from Pushful Joe, 
Through Joseph Junior to Joking Joe, 
Was only to give Uncle Sam to learn 
That now it was time he should take his turn; 
And Joking Joe, with a delicate poke. 



Cecilian Whispers. 131 

Aroused Uncle Sam, and awake he woke, 
And catching the cue he was taught by Choate 

( He was coached by Ghoate) , 
Sam got up and got off Joe's little joke — 
Hurrah! Hurrah! 

Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah! 
As they carved the shoat. 

And the wine and the blood got mixed as they 

ran, 
Till it seemed to them all that they carved a 

man. 
" Hurrah ! Hurrah ! Hah ! Hah ! " they 

roar, — 
Another bumper and then one more. 
The gold plate rattles, the rafters ring, 
The oaken sheh-es and the rafters ring; 
And a sweeping bow 
And a low kow-kow, 
Makes Uncle Sam, 
And a deep salaam, — 
As the wine Sicilian whirls — 
The deepest salaam that you ever saw, 
To the sons and nephews and sons-in-law, 
To the Marquis here and a Sir or so, 

And Barons and Lords and Earls — ' 
And the red blood ran 
As they carved a man. 



132 Primrose Diplomacy. 

The blood was red, 
But the man was dead, — 
What matter how red, or how came he dead? 
The knife went in, above, below, — 
A piece for Junior, and three for Joe, — 
(Kynoch and Hoskins were not there) — 
For the elder, done; for the younger, rare; 
They call'd for a saw, and they saw'd a bone: 
A gasp ! A sigh ! And a smothered groan ! 
Hah! Hah! 

The lig'hts fell dim 
As they fell on him : 
And pale and bleeding, with cutstretch'd hands, 
He pleads for his freedom, his life, his lands. 
'Twas thrice he cried; he was thrice 
denied ; 
He was drown'd in the roar of the rising tide 
Like the shouting Derby roar that rose 
As they strain'd on the tips of their titled toes: 
"He's alive! He's alive! Who said he was 

dead? 
Carve into the heart, the neck, the head ! 
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hah! Hah! Hah! 
Hah!"— 
Till the thrice denied had died. 

At the second call of the Chanticleer 
They reckoned all that the end was near; 



The Kynockoskinator. 133 

And Joe the Joker led Sam forlorn 

Through the lowering red of a frowning 

morn ; 
And the flush on his cheek was the vineyard's 

flood, 
'Twas shame and the flush of the vineyard's 

flood; 
But the stain on his hand was the blush of 

blood, 
The blush and the blot of a brother's blood — 
Hah! Hah! 



THE KYNOCKOSKINATOR. 

War is the wisher's paradox — 
You want it till you win it — 

But once 'tis won, like Dora's box, 
You want not what is in it. 

Drums, trumpets, epaulettes and arms — 
You like it and you choose it — 

But having won its winning charms 
You wait a chance to lose it. 

It is not what it used to be — 

Mechanical man-pelting — 
Stretch out your arm : " See us ! See me! '* 

Bang! See the niggers melting. 



134 Primrose Diplomacy. 

'Tis not a skilful plan, and then 
Defeat them all and any; 

It is to scatter fifty men 

With fifty times as many. 

And when the fifty scattered men 
Come up to-morrow gaily, 

It is to scatter them again, 
And do it over daily. 

And seeing those same fifty men, 

Two thousand times or more — 

" We face a hundred thousand," then 
The British generals roar. 

The French in front and Pat behind, 
The two of them together. 

Appear two million to the mind 
Of England in such weather. 

They hurry Hoskins up again. 
And double the supplies, 

They scrape the colonies for men, 
And Kynock's prices rise. 

They scatter money o er the wave. 
In hot and headlong haste, 

And many a man they waste to save 
The great South Afric waste. 



The Kynockoskinator. 135 

I have a notion to suggest — 

Economies commend it — 
Of course it may not be the best, 

Tho' my best wish attend it. 

'Tis this : that England get some one 

Accustomed to such matters, 
Some Yankee, French or German son, 

To make a gun that scatters. 

A big revoh'ing scatter-gun, 

With wind or water power. 
To set some lofty kop upon 

And scatter every hour. 

Then let it sweep a circle there, 

A-scattering without cease. 
It lays about it everywhere, 

The smiling land in peace. 

The soldiers then recross the wave 

To peaceful occupation; 
And save whatever they can save, 

Erom strenuous taxation. 

Then to the peers we turn our gaze. 

We make the general one ; 
Not what he's done is what we praise, 

But what he hasn't done. 



136 Primrose Diplomacy. 

And while your wounds are waxing well, 
Calm Reason seeks your door, 

The power of peace begins to tell 
Upon your sea and shore. 

Revolves forever 'neath the sun, 

Whatever the conditions, 
That faithful automatic gun, 

Maintaining your traditions. 

So as a tribute richly won 

To war's great agitator, 
We name this novel scatter-gun 

The " Kynockoskinator." 

Then Fancy breathes upon the same. 

With lavish osculation. 
Till " War " assumes the firmer name 

Of " Kynockoskination." 

Wihat care that we must bear and grin 
The cause of the confusion, 

Absorb the agitator in 

Empirical transfusion. 

For as prevention betters cure, 

'Gainst further agitation. 
Our future peace is rendered sure 

By " hoskinockulation." 



Compensation. 137 



COMPENSATION. 

Had she but patient been and pure, 
Wielding the old high skilled diplomacy, 
Bringing the best from worst with dignity and 

ease, 
Braving the temporary scoff as one with faith 

to see 
The far fair triumph of the right, 
How had she w^on throug^hout the passing scorn 
The homage ultimate of all mankind. 

Alas! she chose what seemed the easy course; 
Force was convenient and looked quick and 

sure ; 
She put aside the counsel of hig*h heaven, 
Closed up her eyes to lessons of the past. 
Listened to whispers of a soulless creed 
Of empire based on arms and avarice, 
And took the sword. 

Beaten in every battle, she has proved at last 
That quarter of a million mercenaries disci- 
plined 
Can scatter or outflank, but never crush, 
The patriot merest handful, rude, untrained, 
unpaid, 



i38 Primrose Diplomacy. 

But all inspired with love of liberty and home. 

What has she now to show 

For all her blood and treasure spilled ? 

For all her sale and bargain to the hounds 

That fatten on the public spoils ? 

Harvest of hate! 

These same scattered patriots and their chil- 
dren, 

And their children's children, leagued with the 
dead. 

And all the children and the children's children 
of the dead, — 

The whole air filled with floating ghosts of 
murdered men, — 

To haunt and plague and hang upon her 
flanks, 

And drag her to her final end. 



Ruin of mission merciful and just! 
Wreck of the patient hope of centuries ! 
Yet if the world shall learn therefrom 
That only swift destruction can await 
Even the most majestic when she turns 
To harken to the sordid counsels of the con- 
scienceless. 
Humanity can well endure to witness even this 
catastrophe. 



Symptoms. 139 

America! Take warning! 

Thou, too, art such as she, 

Like tempted and like yielding unto sin. 

Halt ! While the time remains. 

Halt and retreat! 

SYMPTOMS. 

We will plaster him with gold-leaf, and a ped- 
estal we'll get him; 

He's the author of our fortunes, tho' the father 
of oiir fears ; 

We must praise him as we raise him; we can 
watch him where we set him ; 

He's the peer of all the bosses, and the boss of 
all the peers. 

He's the social and official and commercial 

place provider. 
The beginning and the end of the begun ; 
He's the enterprise deviser and the dividend 

divider, 
The remainder — if there is one — ^when he's 

done. 

He's the instrument and mouthpiece of cor- 
ruption and oppression; 

All the evils that the human soul has striven 
to o'ercome 



140 Primrose Diplomacy. 

He has gaily gathered to him, and of these he 

makes confession 
He's the multiple least coinmon and the most 

uncommon sum. 

It is well — for all the navies of humanity unit- 
ing 

Can concentrate their engines against his re- 
sultant prow, 

And succeeding fitful fortunes of all desultory 
fighting 

By one single fateful onset, wreck Hell's whole 
Armada now. 

Vain the hope that such facility can figure as 

reliever, 
For the citadel of evil is afar within the gate; 
He is only a bad symptom, tho' he thinks he's 

the whole fever — 
He is nothing but a pimple on the purple nose 

•of state. 

To penetrate the pimple you will find is fairly 

simple. 
You can scissor off the pimple — still the purple 

nose is sore; 
You can slice the purple nose off till it goes off 

with the pimple, 



Symptoms. 141 

Still the system is as rotten to the bottom as 
before. 

He's the belched up tongue of pressure from 

the subterranean firing ; 
He is Aetna threatening Sicily by night ; 
And you flee him as you see, for his flame is 

more inspiring 
Of foreboding than confiding, for it's lurid and 

not light. 

With most salutary purpose you essay to check 

his gleaming, 
By connecting up your surface streams and 

playing them about ; 
There's a deal of bottled bursting and a little 

local steaming. 
But you find when you have finished that you 

haven't put him out. 

You must reach into the bowels of the earth to 
cure this flaming ; 

You must turn your mighty oceans on the fun- 
damental part ; 

You must purge the constitution while the 
fever you are taming ; 

You must purify the conscience, you must reno- 
vate the heart. 



142 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Speed the remedy, lest purposes malevolent 

which hurt you 
Now but little, reach a climax no drasticity can 

cure — 
For 'tis certain that the keystone of ambition 

without virtue 
Is Che cornerstone of treachery uprising soon 

and sure. 

WHO SHOULD PAY? 

Why should the mines be taxed to pay the 

War? 
Rankest injustice! Inconsistency! 
Equality is equity, you say. 
And share and share alike, the fairest rule. 
Is it not custom in your enterprise, 
For those who are promoters to receive 
The lion's share for giving you the chance? 
Would you upset that law with all the rest. 
And tax instead the very authors of your op- 
portunity ? 

Was the war made by you for us ? 

Be honest, now, was it not rather we 

That made the war for you ? 

Whose lies, bribes, plotting, long design, 

And covert, sinister, unswerving purpose 



Who Should Pay ? 143 

Brought the war ? Were they not ours ? 

Who says it was the mines for which you 
fought ? 

Traducer black and base! 

Nay ! Have you not with withering scorn 

And earthquake oath shaken a thousand plat- 
forms — 

Hand on heart — (albeit wriggling, twisting 
your thumbs, 

Redder and pale by turns, and sideways-eyed) 

Sworn to the world and Heaven — that charge 
is false? 



Principle and prestige, it was, you said, — 
Principle and prestige — 
For them it was you violated faith. 
Broke treaties, flung to the winds discretion, 
Poured out your life-blood and your gold, 
Trod under foot all laws of mercy and of truth. 
Was it our principle, or our prestige ? 
Hah ! Hah ! Are such things in our line ? 
They are the truck you've painted on your 

front — 
While we are just plain traders — nothing more. 



Come, come now, stand up ! Be a man ! 
Back your prospectuses, for here you'll find 



144 Primrose Diplomacy. 

You've caught a customer who makes you 

keep your pact — 
One bargain that we mean to hold you to. 

'Twas yours, not ours, you saved — 

And God forbid that anything of ours 

Should suffer such salvation. 

No, 'tis not in the bond, say we — 

But were it in the bond, 

The bond is broke by bad delivery. 

That is our perfect, double-knitted plea. 

But were they both held bad. 

We'd then defy the judgment. 

Show us the clerk would dare to enter it, 

Or issue process forth ! 

Show us the bailiff who dare execute! 

Stay ! Think awhile ! 

Know we not things? Would you we'd over 

turn 
Judge, jury, deputies and jail? 

Wait. Take your time. Reason with us. 
Whose were the factories boomed? 
Whose were the bucket-shops made busy ? 
Do we make khaki uniforms and guns and 

such ? 
Dow^ sell ammunition, ships and mules? 
Have we had peerages to seek ? 



The Golden Fleece. 145 

Was if our relatives in line of boost 
Into convenient vacancies by fever made 
In partnership with hospitable ambushes ? 
We are plain men of business — think awhile 
again. 

We certainly caused the war? 

There, there ! At last dawns reason now. 

Agreed — 'twas we — 

And therefore you should pay. 

Must we promote and bear the burden too? 

No! Now, you're coming round! It shall 

not be ! 
Hah ! Hah ! Hah ! Hah ! Now sail we smooth ! 
And those whose influence and means befooled 

Old England into such a war, 
By that same sign shall see the same old fool 

Foot all the bills. 

THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 

A TOO-TOAD-LADEN craft somc day 
Towards the banks of England steers, 
She carries croakers and a quay, 

To play 

Croquet, 

Picquet, 

Roulet, 
Upon the piers. 



146 Primrose Diplomacy. 



MADE IN AMERICA. 

The Cobden Club had died resign'd 
To leave its record all unmade, 
Had they a pennyweight divin'd 
The present burden of free trade, 

America is England's child, — 
A sort of daughter once remov'd 
In anger^ — but now reconciled, 
As by the balances is prov'd. 

To bread-stuff traffick first confined, 
This Mistress of the mighty oceans 
At present seems to be inclined 
To take our latest Yankee notions. 

A hundred years ago our schemes 
She scouted wholly, and at first 
Denied the best of all our themes, 
But now embraces first the worst. 

Like coin obeying Gresham's law — 
The cheapest earliest disbursed — 
When friends upon our notions draw 
We shove the bad ones over first. 



Tacked. 147 

But not for love she takes our stuff, 
Nor can our profits be her losses, 
Altho' 'tis plain we'd gain enough 
By exportation of our bosses. 



But still 'twould be unfair to say- 
That paying nothing's paying dear, 
Perhaps the busy boss can pay 
In England's present atmosphere. 



The point of import here involv'd 
Is this : Can England claim that she 
From obligation is absolved, 
Her bosses being duty free? 



TACKED. 

To the winds old Cobden tossing, 

Flat repealed; 
Bosses' business signs embossing 

Public shield. 

Duties growing, 

Discords flowing; 

Rights relaxing; 

Taxing waxing. 



148 Primrose Diplomacy. 

SAINT STEPHEN. 



See them stand waiting there, watching each 

other, 
Worthiest, calling themselves " the elect " ; 
.This looking that way, and that one, another, 
Shading their eyes for the one they expect. 

Others had passed o'er the landscape before 

them. 
Whom, as they came, the elect had denied ; 
Vain the denial! Majestic they bore them 
Straight to the heights by the Gods glorified. 

No more mistakes must be made in this cen- 
tury. 

All the elect with one voice have declared; 

Should some new genius essay to adventure, 
he 

Surely will find his recq:)tion prepared. 

Ready are all the elect to announce him. 

Ready are all the elect to receive; 

Finds he, whenever the heavens pronounce 

him, 
All the elect on the tip of qui vive. 



Saint Stephen. 149 

These say he'll come by the road that they 

mentio'ii ; 
Those say they think he's not coming at all ; 
Scan one another with keen apprehension, 
Lest some one seeing him, distance them all 

Stealing up quietly out of the meadow, 
Up from the darkness behind the elect, — 
None had their pickets out back in the meadow. 
Comes a lone man with a garland bedecked. 

All of them heard all at once his foot falling, 
All of them startled, and all of them burst 
Into a wild and unanimous calling : 
" There he is ! There he is ! I saw him 
first!" 

[Paused he, and listened, and gazed about mild- 

Wondering wdiat the commotion could be; 
Said he, at last, as they greeted him wildly : 
" Really you have the advantage of me ! '* 

11. 

Say I not now the elect are mistaken ; 
Heaven forbid I should question their word ; 
Tho' I confess to a confidence shaken 
When I reflect how they chiefly have erred. 



i5o Primrose Diplomacy. 

When hitherto a new star was approaching 

All the elect have denied him a name, 

But they have differed in terms of reproach- 

ing,— _ 
Something is wrong when they all speak his 

fame. 

Whether they'd like to revise their opinions, — 
Now that they've time to examine their find, — 
Question the shape of his beak or his pinions, — 
Matters now never, for having comlDined 

All with one voice to pronounce him Messiah, 
Crowding each other in zeal to decide, 
Woe be the wretch who should turn Jere- 
miah — 
Stand firm together who dare not divide. 

Why should you handicap him with your 

praises? 
Burden his back with the weight of your name? 
When your indorsement of anything raises 
Questions oi quality as to the same ? 

Maybe my memory maketh to harden me. 
Well tho' I know the elect to be wise. 
Be my belief — and I pray you to pardon me — 
'Twill be in spite of you if he should rise. 



Herod. 151 

Needs he not now the elect to advise him, 
Needs he not Mammon to promise him pelf, 
While your too tropical vows advertise him, 
Knows he his future depends on himself. 



HEROD. 

Genius awhile was dead, but now again the 

light 
Moves and upheaves the Stygian pool. 

Whether he will or no, — 
And even to himself perhaps unknown, 
Save as it chance to tremble on his veins 
Dim consciousness that those quick currents 
Have been breathed upon by Heaven, — 
He makes towards thy coasts, O Albion — 
Albion that was, for once thy cliffs were 

w'hite — 
And brings from out the cruel East 
And the far-speaking Past, 
And sets upon thy shores 
A transfixed, 
Dreadful, 

Rigid and immovable, 
Once human. 
Not even dead, 

Tho' wearing all the lineaments of death, 
A monument oriental, occidental, universal, 



1 52 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Damnably true to history and nature, 

Too late for warning but red ripe for doom, 

Horrible semblance of thyself! 

Where is the pale man of peace whom thou 

didst vow to love? 
Whose gentle name thy boast was to be thine ? 

O mighty Prostitute of the red robe bedecked 
with stolen jewels, 

Thy mouth and hands both blood-besmeared 

And purpling to a darker destiny — 

Above thy victims' innocent dead whiteness 

And piteous upturn'd silence, 

Stand thou forever gibbeted before the Uni- 
verse, 

Empress of Hell! 

THE HOT HOUSE. 

And why should genius haunt the Stygian 

pool? 
No reason, save the words flow well together ; 
No reason, save the image suits the weather; 
No better reason, O fault-finding fool ! 

And why should Herod, Mrs. Herod be? 
Because his figure fits the season better; 



And Now the Greatest One. 153 

Because it is the spirit, not the letter, 
Becomes the sense in sailing Fancy's sea. 

Failing in life, because no life was there; 
Failing in power, because no power could be 
Brought forth of creature born but to be billed. 

Plant of the green-room; rose of the yellow 

glare 
Fed by the footlights; fruit of the Beerbohm- 

Tree ; 
An actor's order by an actor filled. 

AND NOW THE GREATEST ONE. 

Yes, tens of thousands gone! 

Best, bravest, truest true. 
And now the greatest one, 

The Queen, the Queen, goes too. 

She looked upon the dead, 

Fever and rifle swept. 
With shame and sorrow bled 

Her heart. She bowed and wept. 

She called him to her place : 

" Why is it you have lied? " 

She looked upon his face. 

She hid her face and died. 



154 Primrose Diplomacy. 

THE QUEEN IS DEAD. 

Weep, England, weep! Weep! Weep! the 

World, also! 
The Queen has passed beyond all mortal ken. 
Queens also sleep. Queens, men and mice 

must go. 
Weep, England, weep ! Weep ! Weep ! the 

World, again. 

Oh, that her country had her counsels heeded! 
Oh, had her ministers but listened when she 

pleaded ! 
Hers were the grace and reason that they 

needed ! 

Deaf, deaf, alas! were they unto her pleading! 
Behold two little nations, dying, bleeding! 

She's dead. Look on her face. 

She's fled from the disgrace. 
She saw black portents of the future speeding. 

Kneel, England, kneel ! Kneel, kneel, the 

World, also! 
And lay a wreath of lilies on her breast. 
Queens also sleep. Queens, men and mice 

must go. 
But she was gentler, stronger, nobler than the 

rest. 



Cabled from Cowes. 155 

Weep, England, weep! Weep! Weep! the 
World, also! 

Weep now and many morrows, and alway. 

Thy Queen, thy Queen, is gone. Thy Great- 
ness is to go. 

For England's purity has died to-day. 

CABLED FROM COWES. 

Around an old four-posted bed, within a 

simple room 
(The next day it was cabled to be but a small 

spring cot). 
The princes and the princesses were lingering 

agloom 
Until Sir James, the royal leech, should say: 

" The Queen is not." 

The Pomeranian spaniel occupied a place of 

state. 
The cooks within the kitchen were a-cooking 

for the guest. 
The Schleswig-Holsteins were on time; the 

Battenbergs were late, 
When V. R. L to E. R. L passed on the golden 

crest. 

The Queen had asked the nurses if they 
wouldn't take the air. 



156 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Coincident her death-day with her father's — ■ 

Duke of Kent. 
The interceding Winchester incessantly in 

prayer 
Was do'wn beside the screened and melancholy 

bedside bent. 



Her grandchild, Henry's brother, called the 

Emperor by some, 
Arriving from his royal yacht came rushing 

up. "Oh dear!" 
Saith William, " I'm so sorry that my mother 

couldn't come." 
Then quoth the Queen : " I much regret that 

Vicky isn't here." 

In the midst of the petitions of the Lord's re- 
peating arm 

Came a shrill and treble bleating of some royal 
little lamb 

Who was naturally weary but was innocent 
of harm, — 

She was pounced on by the princesses and shut 
up like a clam. 

The arrangements for embalming had been 
made the night before; 



Retouching. 157 

The costliest of coffins had come up from 

London town. 
They gazetted — latest title on that list of many 

more — 
A local undertaker, undertaker to the crown. 

And just at six and thirty, Reid, the doctor, 
raised his head 

To tell them that her pulses were not beating 
any more. 

The correspondents' bicycles towards the vil- 
lage sped. 

The telephone arriving by some fifteen points 
before. 

There's milk of human kindness in the little 

Town of Covves; 
You can see the swelling tides of woe first rise 

and, second, sink, 
The men with mighty murmurs move when 

first the tidings rouse. 
But remembering who the new king is they 

stop and take a drink. 

RETOUCHING. 

I WEEP when seeing many men 

A-painting out the Vs. 

I weep and pray and weep again. 



158 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Importunate my pleas. 
Oh, give me back my Queen again ! 
Restore to me my Queen again! 
Oh, let me have my Queen again! 
Again my Queen ! My Queen again ! 
And you can take your E's. 

HOWELLS ON STEDMAN. 

A CRAZY quilt of many a piece and patch ; 
Hag Income gossiping with Dame Conceit ; 
An erstwhile literary judgment-seat, 
Turn'd calculating shrine of Penny-Catch. 
Majestic as his constellations are. 
He leads them all, and masterfully makes 
Omissions, misproportions and mistakes — 
Himself his own particular morning-star. 
But then how gentle doth his Preface purr 1 
And find at page three hundred eighty-six 
Sufficient solace for most any lapse! 
Or turn unto the next, if you prefer, 
And see some simple adequate to fix 
The color of fame — Perhaps — perhaps — per- 
haps ! 

GUIDES. 

Seeing I knew not the Italian tongue, 
Neither the low low sipa nor the soft si si 
Of the celestial music Dante sung, — 
She gave those books of Norton's unto me. 



Guides. 159 

Three volumnes backed by Romans " I, " II," 

" III,"— 
"I, HELL," the first; "II, PURGATORY," 

then ; 
The last and greatest, " PARADISE," was 

" III,"— 
Three mighty circles spanning human ken. 



I started in and went quite thro' " I, HELL " ; 
With Virgil and the Poet, got me down 
Past the cold-storage centre, Dis bedight and 

fell- 
When a kind book-man sent me T. E. Brown. 

Farewell " II, PURGATORY," and to Dante 

too; 
Farewell old Virgil and the central ice, — 
Charles Eliot Norton and the like of you, — 
'Tis Brown who guides me up thro' PARA- 
DISE. 



Weep tears of joy and sing an anthem then, 
Let me my glad confession gladly tell 
To the sad spirits darkling in the fen, 
'Twas Brown, the Manxman, led me up from 
HELL. 



i6o Primrose Diplomacy. 

TRICOLORS. 

Oh paint me none of your elegant pale, 
Nor the red and the black of your town ; 
But the bonnie brown tint of the nip-hting-ale. 
The mellow shade of that " Shakespeare trim/' 
Oh, give me the green and the blue with him, 
The green and the blue with Browii. 



SAINT MARK. 

The Master, with his unctuous portliness 
Veiling the politician's shallow skill, — 
Fit leader of the hypocrites who fill 
The ranting air with rank blood-guiltiness. 
The trumpeted and stumbling elephant 
Tramphng the field mice with his clumsy feet; 
The huddling herds' servility complete, 
Allegiant to the bad man elegant. 
Welcome an honest man whose fearless blade 
Pricks the infection of the windy bag. 
He paints the color of the khaki rag 
Over the whole contagious, unclean trade. 
A flash of Freedom on the gathering dark ! 
■Welcome! Draw forth thy sword again, Saint 
Mark! 



Howells. i6i 

KHAKI. 

With apologies to Saint Mark. 

A DIRTY yellow, between gold and brass, 
Fit color for this fetid enterprise 
Whose saffron twilight vagues and mystifies 
Till shoals of counterfeits float up and pass. 
Behold an Empire held in quarantine, 
Sequestrated by hatred and distrust. 
Contaminated by unholy lust, 
Her every soldier cries : " Unclean ! Un- 
clean ! " 
Reflect the statesman's face whose flag this is, 
His cachinnated chirp and metal grin 
Cracking the twisted pie-crust cheek-a-jowl; 
Steam througli the seams of this unseemly 

phiz. 
Unwholesome sallows from the mire within, 
Unipecackt humors of a jaundiced soul. 

HOWELLS. 

Like the poised lance, and polished, strikes the 

ear 
His sure attack, but gentle. With delight 
This master of expression brings the right 
And perfect word to bear its true and clear 
II 



i62 Primrose Diplomacy. 

And satisfying sense upon the mind. 
Delicate cloud-lights exquisite arise 
To lift the longings of less gifted eyes, 
And wake the dead, and kindle anew the blind. 
The sleeping conscience rouses as his deft 
And searching blow sends hurrymg from the 

field 
Those sloven cowards, sham and servility. 
Clean, brave and honest in a world bereft 
Of chivalry; balm to the would-be-healed; 
Champion of manhood's real nobility. 



THE NATION. 

Chronic disturber. Matchless discontent 
Sits trying to contract thy wary brow. 
Drastic upheaver of my liver, thou ; 
A quick rock into stagnating waters sent. 

Spirit of Garrison, never storm'd or fiank'd, 
Faces the foe undaunted ; loses, gains ; 
The irrepressible conflict still maintains, 
Led by the offspring Wendell Phillips spank' d. 

Turn on, turn on ; the turn-spit and the roasts ; 
Sear the proud flesh ; then roll the piece about 
And sink the blast into some cancer new. 



The Outlook. 163 

Burn on, burn on; leaving familiar coast 
We steer by retrospect; old lights go out, 
Save this eccentric beacon still turns true. 



GO WITH HIM TWAIN. 

The stiffest lot of non-resistant stock 
That ever shook a stick, or took a knock. 



THE OUTLOOK. 

Thin varnish of religiosity 
Slick'd over a vast surface of conceit. 
An oracle itinerant, whose seat 
Camp-stools along with grave velocity. 

An army hanger-on ; dilated eyes 
Show how the drum-beat has upset his wit 
To swing and swell the sidewalk opposite: 
" This is my army and my march," he cries. 

Greets Frederick's chicanery with applause; 
And shouts " Amen " down Ament's moral 

pit; 
Comes Evil big and strong, he parleys it ; 
Hair-splitting balancer in Freedom's cause. 



164 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Convert to Mammon, thee thy speech be- 
wray 'th, 
Loud remnant-pecldler of a vanished faith. 

ESTIMATION. 

In this day of sterling standards wherein 
everything is measured, 
From the poet to the peerage, by the 
money it surrounds, 
'Tis appropriate, tho' painful, to behold a bro- 
ther treasured 
At the nominal appraisal of but fifteen 
hundred pounds. 

Bare fifteen hundred sterling for a brother's 
reputation ! 
Who paid the fifteen hundred pounds? 
the people want to know : 
Did the real defendant pay it? Or did Joe, in 
refutation 
Of the inconvenient truth across the path 
he wants to go? 

Sad the status of a country when her states- 
manship requires 
Formal judgments of a jury that it is not 
what it seems; 



Nemesis. 165 

Sadder still the low conceptions of. the states- 
man who inspires 
Such a claptrap demonstration to advance 
his guinea dreams. 

Now the country and the statesmen and the 
judges and the jury 
Solidarity oi .insular connotions have 
combined ; 
Then they whirl upon the future with a wild 
inflated fury 
Till they suddenly awaken where the mad 
convey the blind. 

HOUNSLOW HEATH. 

Come, pull yourself together, England, Rub 

your heavy eyes. 
And look about and see where he has led you. 
How he's brought you to the border, England, 

Where all virtue dies; 
How he's humbugg'd, drugg'd, sand-bagged, 
■dragg'd, gagg'd and bled you. 

NEMESIS. 

When Birmingham had had 
His high carousal sad, 
And brought his country into deep disgrace, 



1 66 Primrose Diplomacy. 

They still supported him 
From centre unto rim 
Until the Angel Michael showed his face. 



Then the firm circle broke, 

Each severed segment spoke, 
Each said it was the other ought to pay. 

" We pause upon the brink ; 

Our pockets make us think." 
Then Birmingham goes glimmering away. 



THE BELLOWS. 

Birmingham had a furnace, 

And she had a bellows too, 
And the bellows she blew, blew, blew. 

She blew east, west. 
North, south and all the rest; 
She blew the whole boxed compass through. 
She blew red, green, yellow, indigo and blue; 

She blew up Birmingham, 

She blew up Britain, 

She blew up the Empire — 

For so it is written — 
And she blew up the bellows too. 



Milner. 167 



THE EXTINCT LIBERAL. 



So busy writing- of his great forbears, 
He must himself forbear of being great. 
So sneers the enemy. But he who dares 
To state the right, will some day right the 
State. 



MILNER. 

Messages garbled and the truth suppressed 
To aid his purpose and foment a strife 
Whose now returning fangs menace the life 
Of his own country. Claims are set at rest — 
Reward of treason. Freebooters self-con- 
fessed. 
Are raised to prominence to emphasize 
The methods by which Englishmen may rise 
Upon the ruins of the lands they wrest. 
Not till my heel is firm upon his neck 
Can I consider. Then I will be kind 
And show him statesmanship and civilize 
His rudeness. Deathless mid the wreck 
His spirit still defies me. But I'll grind 
His wasting body till no dust replies. 



i68 Primrose Diplomacy. 



MESMER. 

The gipsy wrapped the victim's will in hers, 
And round the yielding senses deftly threw 
The three-striped fetich with the single hue 
Of Milnerism, mines and milliners. 

Dazed by the charm of some hypnotic spell, 
She turns again to worship poppy-shows, 
Wigs, functions, powdered faces, furbelows, 
And other royal tales the taxes tell. 

The glad familiar smile; the hearty shakes 
Of the happy hand; a slap on the back; em- 
brace 
Of the friendly right arm. Vacancies fix 
The filming eyes. And while the one hand 

makes 
A sinister pass before the dreaming face. 
The nimble right the patient's pocket picks. 

PROTECTION. 

At last the crowning error is revived; 
Son of corruption and her fruitful sire; 
Maid of the miasm, mother of the mire; 
iMaker of evils, from all ills derived. 



Liberty. 169 

Just as the dawn was rising upon men, 

And tottering privilege approached the brink, 

Appears this harlot with her blinding drink 

And sets up inequality again. 

Again to the same gay charlatan we turn ; 

His fingers itch, his mad ambitions burn; 

Captain of makeshifts, knight of the hollow 
sound, 

He sinks the ship to run himself aground. 

Hail, noble England ! Once we loved thee 
well ! 

Hail, noble England! Hail, and alas, fare- 
well! 



LIBERTY. 

" My Country, 'tis of thee, 

Sweet land of liberty " — 

" Thus shall she ever be " — 
Saith William — and the argument is clinched. 

Sweet William of Canton, 

Smile quickly, and pass on ; 

Thy hosts w^ould sooner see, 

Than liberty and thee. 
A sheriff bested and a nigger lynched. 



i7o Primrose Diplomacy. 

THE DINNER PAIL. 

Sweets to the sweet, gifts to the giver, be; 

The President approximates a pie-man; 
The snppHant citizen, distributee; 

With rights of man recast to date by Ly- 
man. 

BALLAST. 

One John Marshall, in the place of Brown, 
Had turn'd the topsy-turvy judgment down. 

FEDERAL BANKRUPTCY. 

Their assets are many, but mightily mixed 

In a mass of amazing misfits ; 
Nor can we account our affairs to be fixed 

Till some one has marshalled their wits. 

THE FADING FLAG. 

The constitution follows trade; 

Haul the old colors down ; 
Up with the salt-and-pepper shade 

Of gray and white and brown. 



The Fading Flag. 171 

The red for courage, bhie for truth, — 
Wipe the old flag away, — 

And substitute for them, forsooth, 
Commercial brown and gray. 

Store-keeper, pass the parcels down, 
Check up and take your pay. 

The red has grown tobacco brown. 
The blue a sugar gray. 

Can no sound manhood be secured 
From all our wits combined ? 

Can only noxious weeds be cured, 
And cane-brake be refined? 

Farewell, Old Glory, fare thee well! 

Farewell our ancient pride. 
Our only faith, to buy and sell. 

Our conscience set aside. 

Red, white and blue, no more she waves ; 

As in the olden day; 
Fold her upon our fathers' graves, 

And sadly turn away. 

Wake up! Wake up! It cannot be! 

Raise the old flag again. 
And let our waiting brothers see 

A remnant still are men. 



172 Primrose Diplomacy. 



THE CONSTITUTION. 

Paint bones and numskulls on the rag 
Across a deep black ground, 

Then elevate the pirate flag 
And glower all around. 



SAINT HELENA. 

Ocean-barr'd cell where Europe's dragon 

pined, 
Held boasted prisoner in England's name; 
Seizing thereby, with her prompt usual claim, 
The fruited labors of them all combined. 

Now crown'd with a cattle-pen for herded men 
Rack'd in slow-dying duress, to extort 
From these dumb victims' suffering, support 
For England's thumb-screw policy again. 

The prisoners are the jailers. England's fame 
Hangs grill'd and pinioned on that island horn. 
With her unmask'd barbarity in plain 
And damning view of the patient world. A 

flame 
Of smould'ring justice leaps in all human-born, 
.While the wild ocean frets for the hurricane. 



A Prime Minister. 173 



SALISBURY. 

Strains at ten gnats of Christian charity, 
One at a time, and cannot swallow one ; 
Then takes at one fell gulj), and only one, 
The Devil's steel-knit solidarity. 

Refuses action on a thousand grounds, 
To further peace and veto public waste ; 
Then sudden spends, in hot unreason' d haste, 
On needless war, two hundred million pounds. 

Sleek, hard and ugly, yet a good bell-bull 
For other sleek, hard, ugly ones, to run 
Amuck with when he has his glaring fits; 

But if one seek for statesmanship, more fidl 

Of vacancy than any other one — 

A splendid tool for men of quicker wits. 

A PRIME MINISTER. 

Say you he some time shed his blood for us? 
'Tis naught. He is a traitor. Tread him 

down ; 
With timely insults keep him exercised; 
Spit on his sad green island sod. 



T74 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Reach into the very vitals of his conscience and 

his heart. 
And tear his life-strings till they hang and 

drip. 
His skill and courage saved us from disgrace? 
I will not hear it. Watch him. His breed 

is bad — 
One of the many litters doom'd to decay, 
Their sole remaining tenure of survival 
Being it. pleases us to let them live. 

Refused we chances to assist the weak? 
What right have they to be so? Or what 

claim on us? 
Is this an imbecile home of superannuates? 
A fond asylum for incompetents 
Or orphaned infancy or women forlorn? 
Our government a sanatorium ? 
Our ofiicers dispensators of salve? 

Have we done positive wrong? 

Bah! What is wrong? But a conventional 

sound. 
Let me reverberate a little: "Right! Right! 

Right ! 
All Good ! All Good ! Good ! Good ! No Fault ! 

No Fault!" 



A Prime Minister. 175 

I blind and deafen judgment by my roar; 
1 break the echoes till their interrupting waves 
Set up a choppy opaque tide-riven bar 
Where all the little vexing up-set tell-tales tur- 
tle and duck; 
Accredit me with money, an army and votes — 
I'll elevate the triumph of self-shouted praise. 



Do they all hate us ? Fetch me my book ! 
Find me the language that brings loathing up, 
Beats latent scorn into an impotent foam; 
Marshal me all the vile vernacular 
With mercenary miscreants out of the past 
When men were slaves, and ancestors of mine 
Wielded the lash; sift out the choicest ruffians; 
Choose them with cunning; concentrate; 
Grenade the ultimate vitriolic sum — 
Quick! Now the calm moment ripens! 
Seems there a quiet in their calumny ? 
Quicker! They soften and sweeten a bit! 
Hand me the black-snake ! Let me lay it on ! — 
Some skill'd expression steep'd in contempt — 
And throw the blister into the gaping welts — 
Then see them turn again to gnash and froth 
and ho'wl! 



176 Primrose Diplomacy. 



THE IRON-BROWN'D LATH. 

A MAN granted by Heaven more chance to do 

more good 
Than all the corridors of time contain beside; 
Yet whose accomplishment recorded shows 
No single opportunity to rescue virtue 
Or uphold the helpless weak embraced, — 
The rather shrunk from in prompt cowardice. 

But every " chance to do ill deeds " seized with 

avidity, 
And hurried to fruition, 
Were there but knaves enough behind, 
Backed by an army of fools, 
To push him in. 



THE ROTTEN BOROUGH. 

An inner, nearer circle filled with mounds, 
On which, as filters forth the harvest moon. 
Mid vaporous odors dank and decadent. 
Sit sorry skeletons unsteadily. 

Restless and rattling as they elbow round, 
They glare and goggle through their socket- 
holes, 



The Rotten Borough. 177 

And mutter mute, unmeaning, lipless things — 

A lowering suspicion immanent 

That glory sits on them uncomfortable. 

Beyond, a sombre, melancholy throng 
Of pale-faced women spent with ecstasy — 
The dowagers of military fame 
With haggard striplings clinging to their 
skirts. 

While out and out in ever-widening spheres, 
Concentred on the magic cynosure, 
Swell to the horizontal terminals 
Galleries on galleries of constituents. 

Wonderful transformation ! Past belief ! 
Men whom the world had marked oi sordid 

mien, 
Wedded to money, merchandise and self. 
Schemers and cornerers and cinch-experts. 
Catch the divine afflation instantly, 
Fill till they almost burst with loyalty 
Glowing incontinent with altruism, 
Leap to a lofty, missionary flame. 

Grades and distinctions are all levelled down; 
In fierce democracv of equal aim 
The landed lady rustling silkenwise 
12 



178 Primrose Diplomacy. 

Jostles the manufacturer of khaki-stuff, 
And he, the cutter and the button-man. 



Swayed in hypnotic subjectivity 
Bursts the acclamatory chorus forth 
To him who waves the wand, unites the wire, 
Binds and unbinds the bond, spells and dispels. 
While the accordant, conipanying wind 
Fifes throug-h a general's rib interstices; 
And, minus heads and legs, the wobbly trunks, 
Sitting uncertain on their narrow beds, 
In joint and several reciprocity 
Drum with their shin-bones on their toppled 
skulls, 

THE CRITIC. 

In truth a weakness I confess 

Both in and for my verses; 

And be it neither more nor less 
Tho" critic art coerces. 



Coercions kill and critics too — 
A Donnybrook of brothers — 

For wliat themselves they cannot do 
Is criminal in others. 



Tho Stopper. 179 

Poke but a head beyond the door — 

These foes of aspiration 
Go pinch his current off before 

He gasps for inspiration. 

Poor hag-faced midwives of the mind, 

Sad snuffers of creation, 
Douse every gHm to spare their blind 

And blank imagination. 

So do beware that sorry crew — 

Whichever way you rub them, 

They'll backbite in a rub or two — 
'Tis only safe to snub them. 

" You're one yourself, forsooth," they cry, 

Inditing the inditer; 
'Tis true, a sort of one, for I 

Do backbite the backbiter. 



THE STOPPER. 

If all my kind advising friends had said : 

" Your style is beautiful. Come, publish 

now ! " 
Methinks my oenius then and there had fled. 
And exit me before my opening bow. 



i8o Primrose Diplomacy. 

But everybody said: ''Don't! Don't! Don't! 

Don't!" 
"What's that?" said I. "I guess I think I 

will." 
And then: " Please stop! " 

"Oh, No!" 

"You must." 

"I won't!" 
And SO' I did not stop, and do not still. 



I did not stop, and do not think I will. 
Widow my muse before I even get her ? 
It suits me best to press my suit until 
I'm sure some other suitor suits her better. 



So whether I succeed or my successor, 
My dust be gold, or all my gold be copper. 
My wine be bursting vinegar, — Assessor I 
Set it not to the wine, but tax the stopper. 



THE CORK. 

Methinks my critic is a little cork, 
Wooden and colorless, save ashen-hued. 
He fits and bottles. To a screw or fork, 
With great amenability, endued. 



The Cork. i8i 

My critic is a cork cut short to sell, 

And fitted into little holes to sink, 

In smaller ends. A drop will make him swell, 

A very little pressure make him shrink. 



Not even pithy, tho' that epithet 
Would seem appointed to the spongy, lax, 
Ill-meated matter in the middle met — 
Unhoneyed comb of artificial wax. 



Not even pointed, dull and somewhat flat, 
Pushed into service, sealed with a piece of tin. 
Stamp' d with a legend loud proclaiming that 
The critic's owner puts and keeps him in. 



Howso securely tight the bottle be, 
Its contents whether seltzer or champagne, — 
A little pull,— the spirit is set free- 
Pop! Goes the critic through the window- 
pane. 

A little pull ! My critic, mark the matter ! 
The word is little, but the meaning full 
As any buckwheat cake of flannel batter— 
What chiefly moves the critic is a pull. 



1 82 Primrose Diplomacy. 

My critic cork is but a little bark 
A bark, a thought occurring to a cur, 
Told to the moon, a little after dark, 
When the wind whistles to the thistle-spur. 



My critic cork is but a little bark 

Afloat upon his own fantastic sea, 

An orphaned bay whose frothy shallows mark 

How far its waters from the ocean be. 

(An orphaned bay — bow-wow! — an orphaned 

bay! 
How " pawky " is the tongue that tricks you 

so! 

I read it in the New York N to-day. 

Of Campbell-Bannerman — I've used it — lo!) 

There is no room for any Heaven's breath 
To wake those shallows to an ocean song; 
To save his sun-suck' d sea from pickled death, 
He stirs and spatters as he squids along. 

Dreaming amid his own midsummer wrecks. 
This floating stopper in his sanctum sits. 
And keeps his flock of broken heads and necks. 
Of fitted bottles and of bottled fits. 



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